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THE WOOING OF 

At I 

ROSAMOND FAYRE 


BY 

BERTA RUCK 

(MRS. OLIVER ONIONS) 
Author of “ His Official Fiancee ” 



NEW YORK 

DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY 
1915 


Copyright, 1915, by 
DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY 


/ 


00 i -6 1915 

Cl. A 4 10875 

'V' ■ 


C-" 


©ebtcatton 

(London, now) 

TO BODO 

WHO FIRST TOLD ME STORIES 

(Formby, long ago) 



CONTENTS 


PART I 

IN TIME OF PEACE 


CHAPTER 

Introduction — Two Girls and a Man- 
in-the-Air 

PAGE 

1 

I 

“ Darling ” per pro 

9 

II 

A Man’s Answer 

25 

III 

The Meeting 

34 

IV 

The First Call 

53 

V 

The New Moon 

75 

VI 

Plan — and Super-Plan .... 

85 

VII 

Check ! 

102 

VIII 

Crows to Pluck 

108 

IX 

The Wrong Girl 

119 

X 

The Other Girl 

129 

XI 

. The Hen-Party 

144 

XII 

The Sound of a Kiss 

162 

XIII 

A White Night 

177 


VI 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER 

XIV 

A Paper-Chase 

. 

PAGE 

. 189 

XV 

Fellow-Conspirators . 

. 

. 199 

XVI 

“ Not to be Forwarded ” . 


. 215 


PART II 

IN TIME OF WAR 


I 

The Call to Arms .... 

. 227 

II 

The White Feather .... 

. 241 

III 

The Day 

. 260 

IV 

“ On Account of the War ” . 

. 268 

V 

London in Khaki 

. 279 

VI 

Recruiting-Ribbons .... 

. 290 

VII 

The Reservist’s Wife .... 

. 309 

VIII 

Allies 

. 328 

IX 

War-Paint 

. 347 

X 

The Last Line 

. 355 


Postscript — Wish and Fulfilment 

. 375 


THE WOOING OF 
ROSAMOND FAYRE 


PART 1 

IN TIME OF PEACE 


INTRODUCTION 

TWO GIRLS AND A MAN-IN-THE-AIR 

“ Love-letters are the paper-currency for kisses, after 
all. So imagine having to write another girl’s love- 
letters ! Imagine an engaged girl who commissioned an- 
other girl to kiss her fiance for her ! Really, it wouldn’t 
be much more extraordinary than what she wants me to 
do!” 

And Rosamond Fay re, the secretary-girl (who was 
incidentally a golden-blonde, goddess built) sat back in 
the Sheraton chair before the drawing-room of Urqu- 
hart’s Court, Kent, and gasped again. 

“ I write to her young man for her? A girl’s court- 
ship letter? The sort of live, intimate personal thing 


2 


INTRODUCTION 


that oughtn’t to have the trace of a third person’s touch 
about it? It’s not my job at all,” Rosamond told 
herself, indignantly. “No one would have thought of 
giving me such a thing to do — except Eleanor ! ” 

Now the “ Eleanor ” in question was Miss Urquhart 
of Urquhart’s Court. She was a small olive-skinned 
brunette, with dark conscientious eyes, a tiny, tight- 
lipped mouth, and a spare brown hand. That hand 
wasn’t the kind of hand upon which one expects to see 
the blaze of the sapphire-set-with-diamond engagement 
ring that Miss Urquhart wore. She was immersed in 
“ good works ” of every description. 

And because “ good works ” bring in their train an 
endless string of business-letters — because Eleanor 
Urquhart, though she possessed a fine head for figures, 
lacked the pen of a readier writer, she usually employed 
the readier click of the typewriter belonging to a lady 
secretary (who lived at the Court with herself and her 
father) to cope with her correspondence. . . . 

Really reliable secretary-girls are about as plentiful 
as really Heaven-born cooks, or artists. 

The arrangement had been rather reminiscent of the 
tragedy of those ten little niggers ! 

For one secretary-girl had contradicted Miss Urqu- 
hart. She, of course, went. The next had kept a 
charitable duchess waiting in the ante-room. The next 
had appropriated blouses, sent for the Jumble Sale, for 
her own use. The next had had a South London accent 


INTRODUCTION 


S 


that had jarred too painfully on old Mr. Urquhart ’s 
sensitive, scholarly nerves. The next secretary-girl had 
done worse than all; she had got up a flirtation with 
the Public-School-educated and handsome young chauf- 
feur at Urquhart’s Court! Yea; after dinner she had 
slipped out into the rose-garden to meet him. This 
sort of thing Miss Urquhart simply did not under- 
stand, did not wish to understand, — and did not mean 
to have. That secretary-girl left at a moment’s 
notice. 

And it was the day after Miss Urquhart had been 
forced to dismiss her fifth amanuensis in two months 
that she discovered the favourite of her old school, 
Rosamond Fay re, the Army Doctor’s daughter, now 
orphaned and penniless except for what she could earn, 
fainting from over-fatigue in a cash desk at the Hotel 
Midas, London. 

Miss Fayre possessed a clerical training that Miss 
Urquhart lacked. She possessed also an appearance 
and a voice that were invaluable in interviews with snob- 
bish subscribers. Lastly she possessed a clear hand- 
writing that Eleanor had admired even to mimicry while 
the girls were still at school together. 

To Miss Fayre, pale and lovely in her black, cotton- 
backed satin business-frock, Eleanor had offered the 
vacant post. 

Rosamond had wept with delight as she had accepted 
it. Then and there she had arranged to undertake that 


4 


INTRODUCTION 


endless writing to the President of the Guild of Mother- 
craft and to the eleven thousand odd members of the 
Working Girls’ Holiday Hostel Club. 

Little dreaming of the other letters that she would 
presently be called upon to write ! 

Still dazed at the thought of this task, she stared 
out of the long French window at the grey stone Ter- 
race with steps leading down to the sun-washed lawn, 
at the famous lime-tree avenue beyond that, and, far 
beyond that again, the glimpse of flat, blue Kentish 
Weald, in the midst of which this old house seemed to 
bask and doze, padded with ivy to its red chimney- 
stacks. In the late May, before the War, it nestled 
under the very wing of the Angel of Peace. 

Urquhart’s Court! A lovely place! 

Rosamond was lucky to be there, instead of at the 
Midas. 

But she forgot her “ luck ” as she remembered the 
quick, authoritative young voice of Eleanor Urquhart, 
half an hour ago, giving her instructions in the walled 
garden where both girls had been gathering flowers to 
send to a Hospital. 

“ It’s mail-day, the day for Ted’s letter, and I 
haven’t a minute now,” she had said, standing by the 
green door. “ So, Rosamond, you’ll put it together for 
me, please.” 

Rosamond had opened her pansy eyes so wide that 
one would have expected to see blue petals fall out upon 


INTRODUCTION 


5 


her cheeks. She had gasped, “Put it together? You 
can’t mean in my own handwriting?” 

“ Well — 4 our ’ writing! They’re so very much alike, 
Rosamond.” 

“ But you won’t want that copy sent? ” 

“ Of course. There isn’t t-t-t-time to make another,” 
from Eleanor Urquhart, who, when she was flurried, 
uncertain, or vexed, showed a danger-signal in the form 
of a tiny stutter. 44 Y-y-yes ! ” 

44 D’you mean it, Eleanor? ” 

Apparently Eleanor had meant it. And Rosamond, 
walking beside her, flower-laden, up the lawn, had said 
in turn what she meant. 

44 My darling employerette ! I’ll do 4 anything in 
reason ’ to earn my position in this lap of luxury, but it’s 
not in reason to want me to write to an engaged young 
man and tell him that his sweetheart hasn’t got time ! ” 

Fastidious Eleanor had frowned a little. Sometimes 
Rosamond, in her laughing, careless way, used expres- 
sions that made her, Eleanor, feel shy and cold. She 
disliked the old English word 44 sweetheart ” that came 
without a thought to Rosamond’s lips. 44 Sweetheart ” 
— How Club-girlish ! Why, it was almost as bad as 
44 followers ” / It would be “ walking out with ” next ! 
In a girl like Rosamond, all this was 44 a pity.” How- 
ever, Eleanor was otherwise satisfied with the Secretary 
who had proved so efficient, up to now. So, as they 
reached the Terrace, she explained gravely : 


INTRODUCTION 


“ I don’t want you to tell him that. I hate hurting 
people’s feelings, and Ted might not understand why 
I was so busy. Men don't understand ! But I prom- 
ised he should have a weekly letter, and I never break 
promises. So I want you to write, Rosamond, as if you 
were me. Sign it with my name.” 

“ But — -my dear ! ” from the freshly aghast Rosa- 
mond. “That’s impossible! Can’t you understand? 
Heavens ! It — it would be a kind of forgery ! ” 

“ No, it wouldn’t. Not if I tell — ask you to do it. 
You wrote and signed for me those dinner-invitations.” 

“ Dinner-invitations, yes. But a girl’s 1 — her per- 
sonal letter to a man — no ! I simply couldn’t.” 

“Why not, Rosamond? You’ve known more men 

than I have. You do sometimes write ” 

“ To admirers ? ” The secretary stopped. In 
Eleanor’s little dark “ shut ” face she had observed that 
this too was a disapproved-of expression. “ Men- 
friends of my own, perhaps ! But never . . . never a 
real love-letter ; sheets and sheets, tiny handwriting, five 
postscripts, snapshots and pressed pansy enclosed and 
fourpence extra to pay for postage ! I’ve never yet 
achieved one of those ! ” 

“ Well, n-n-n-nor have I,” from the young fiancee , 
with a new coldness that had chilled the girl who lived 
on her salary. “ You have written my letters before 
from dictation. You know what I should wish to have 
said. And you know as well as I do what has been 


INTRODUCTION 7 

happening here for the last few weeks. It won’t take 
you long, Rosamond.” 

“ No, but—” 

“ I will give you his last letter to me, so that you 
may answer any question he puts.” 

“And what about . . . him? . . . Mr. Ted Urqu- 
hart? Is he supposed to notice no difference — — ?” 

“ Why need he notice? ” from the girl “ he ” was to 
marry. “ Those dinner-party people didn’t.” 

“No! But ” 

As they reached the ivy-draped front of the house 
Rosamond was remembering another, a very young man, 
who, then in College rooms with her brother, had once 
written to her, “ When the postman brings letters for 
Fay re, I know when there is one from you! It seems to 
make a sound of its own , as it's pushed through the 
letter-box. It's different! 1 swear this isn't imagina- 
tion! Won't you ever write to me? " 

Eleanor knew nothing about letters of this sort ! She 
was saying, “ It is only so that my fiance does not miss 
a mail. That seems to mean so much to a man — Abroad. 
And I am — as you see — prevented. Come and write in 
the drawing-room,” concluded Miss Urquhart less stiffly, 
as she passed through the huge open French windows, 
“ it’s so cool.” 

“ Not as 4 cool ’ as what she proposes to let me do 
there ! ” thought the reluctant Rosamond, following the 
small, composed figure of her girlish employer. “ Writ- 


8 


INTRODUCTION 


ing forged letters to a young man-in-the-air ! An en- 
gaged man ! A man I’ve never seen ! ” 

“ Here you are,” Eleanor had said, drawing out the 
topmost foreign envelope of a neat pile in a right-hand 
drawer of her escritoire. “ This is his last. You’ve got 
a pen and plenty of ink? — blotting paper. . . . It’s 
a twopenny-ha’penny stamp. There are some in the 
little red leather box on the left there ; and the foreign 
note-paper is here. . . .Now you’ve got everything 
you want.” 

“ Stop — Oh, wait a minute ! How do I begin ? ” 
urged Miss Fayre, with a vague “ Dearest ” balancing 
a “ My own Boy ” at the back of her mind. Surely the 
“ edited ” editions of those dictated letters held Elea- 
nor’s own expressions before they were sent off? “ If 

you don’t mind telling me ” 

“Begin? Why, 4 My dear Ted.’ That’s all, isn’t it? 
G-G-Good-bye!” 

And the secretary-girl had been left alone to her 
grotesque and unthinkable and impossible new duty ! 


CHAPTER I 


“DARLING ” PER PRO 

Sitting there at Eleanor’s desk, staring at Elea- 
nor’s blotter and biting the end of her pen, it was long 
before Rosamond so much as dipped that pen in the 
ink. 

“ Oh, I can’t do this,” was her first decision. “ Can’t ! 
Anybody but that benighted little philanthropic innocent 
of an Eleanor would realise that it was quite impossible. 
She really is — ‘ Handwritings so alike,’ she said ! As if 
that were all there was in a letter ! As if the young man 
mightn’t suspect from a dozen things that it wasn’t the 
usual letter. He’d be hideously ahnoyed with her — oh, 
with both of us, but I don’t matter, I’m just ‘the pen.’ 
Perhaps she wouldn’t mind his annoyance? But she 
must learn to mind ! After all, she’s going to be a very 
different sort of girl presently, one hopes. When the 
young man comes home, that will be the crisis ! Then, 
she’ll grow to mind. Then she’ll be precious sorry she 
ever deputed a mere salaried menial like me to do such 
a crazy thing! I shall refuse.” 

Her blue eyes strayed about the stately old room, 
from lustre chandelier to Adams fireplace, its grate 
hidden by a cataract of fern. They rested, scarcely 
9 


10 


“ DARLING ” PER PRO 


seeing it, on a gilt-framed Baxter print of 44 The Lover’s 
Letter-box,” the picture that shows a pretty Victorian 
in a soap-bubble of white muslin skirts, who is slipping 
a sealed note into the fork of a hollow tree. How unlike 
Eleanor’s methods ! 

Presently came the grim thought : 44 Eleanor has had 
secretaries who 4 refused ’ one thing or another. They 
went ! ” 

And then, 44 Oh, but I can’t go ! Not back to all those 
horrors that I’ve only, by good luck and Eleanor’s job, 
just escaped! Orders, in Cockney accents, from men 
who ought by rights to be calling me 4 Madam ’ ! Com- 
pliments, from the same — and worse * 

44 And what about London in this heat ? And the 
stuffiness ? and the smells ? and washing one’s own hankies 
in the bath-room? and the shop eggs for breakfast? and 
no room to put one’s things? (even supposing one had 
‘things’ to put!), and how about losing your looks, 
Rosamond, my child? ” she addressed herself. 44 How 
about getting 4 washed-out ’ with tiredness and round- 
shouldered with work, and old and out of mischief before 
your time? 

“No! . . . I won’t! . . . I will, I mean ! ” And she 
drew her chair a little nearer the desk. 

44 1 shall have to pay for the other. Pay by writing 
letters from Eleanor to 4 her dear Ted. 9 Very well ! ” 
decided the secretary-girl with a little reckless laugh. 
44 It’s not as if he or she were the 4 usual ’ type of engaged 


“ DARLING ” PER PRO 


11 


people. It’s not as if the whole engagement weren’t — 
well ! rum in the extreme ! ” 

For Eleanor Urquhart’s engagement to her cousin 
Ted was a thing that never failed to amuse, puzzle and 
even exasperate her friend, Rosamond Fayre. 

In one way, it was “ so business-like.” 

For what could be more business-like than the action 
of the young man? Here he was, left heir to the beau- 
tiful old Kentish estate out of which — unless some better 
arrangement could be made — he would have to turn the 
uncle and the girl-cousin who had always lived there. 
And his idea of a “ better arrangement ” had been to 
propose to marry the girl-cousin, who could then con- 
tinue to live in the place as if she were the heiress and 
the mistress thereof — merely keeping house for one extra 
in the family, a husband as well as her father. 

Satisfactory enough. 

Only, how ^-business-like in another way ! That was 
how it appeared to Rosamond. 

Fancy being prepared to marry and to spend the rest 
of your life with — a person whom you have never even 
seen! 

For, thanks to one accident after another, the Urqu- 
hart cousins had never happened to meet. Eleanor had 
found it impossible to leave her College the last time that 
Ted Urquhart had stayed with his Uncle at Urquhart’s 
Court, three years ago. And it was two years after this 
visit that General Urquhart, Ted’s father, had died 


12 


“ DARLING ” PER PRO 


where he had always preferred to live, abroad. The 
beautiful Kentish mansion, which had always seemed to 
belong to the bookish, stay-at-home brother, had passed 
by right of entail to that rolling-stone, young Ted, then 
prospecting in Mexico; for he was a born traveller, 
adventurer, ranger, even as his soldier father had 
been. 

It had been by letter that the curious arrangement 
of the Urquhart engagement had been made. And by 
letter — for Ted, deep in schemes that were Greek to 
the home-keeping Urquharts, had remained abroad 
from that day to this — the courtship had been carried 
on. 

“ If you can call it a courtship ! ” Rosamond Fayre 
had laughed when she had first heard of it. But 
Eleanor had refused to see anything “ odd ” about this 
contract. 

“ Why, it’s the best possible solution.” This was 
Miss Urquhart’s view. “ There’s this Court ; it’s Ted’s 
only home when he isn’t wandering all over the earth. 
And I must have it for my drawing-room meetings and 
for the Working Girls’ Garden Parties. And there’s the 
library for father. He’d never get accustomed to an- 
other study. Ted couldn’t turn us out ! He said so.” 

“ And is there no happy medium between brutally 
turning a young woman out of house and home, and 
. . . marrying her? ” 

Not in this case, Eleanor had pointed out. How could 


“ DARLING ” PER PRO 


13 


she be the mistress of Urquhart’s Court unless she were 
either the daughter or the wife of the owner? 

And the owner himself? Rosamond had put amused, 
eager questions as to what he could be like? 

Eleanor was not vivid in description. She’d informed 
Rosamond that “ Father had seemed to like him as much 
as he ever did like young men.” He had seemed to think 
Ted Urquhart “ nice ” — though all his interests were 
“ out-of-doors ” and “ crude.” He’d said he would have 
been a soldier himself but for considering that there 
“ wasn’t enough going on, nowadays,” for a man in the 
Service. Level-headed enough, Eleanor’s father had 
thought. Then Eleanor had fetched a letter from this 
Ted and read aloud: 

“ I don’t know when you’re likely to get this. You 
ask me how I got to this place; well, it’s in a steamer 
from Southampton — then a three days’ journey by 
train up-country to where the line runs out, then three 
more days up a river in canoes. Then mules. This last 
journey we couldn’t even use mules, because of our 
machinery. We had to take the castings of it in big 
pieces, so somehow we managed to cart along the pieces 
ourselves over the roughest parts; don’t ask what we 
wore, or looked like at this job” 

Here Rosamond had lifted her bright head. 

" My dear ! Do you know, he sounds rather a ripper 


14 


“ DARLING ” PER PRO 


to me. Why does this type of young man always live 
Abroad, where one doesn’t see him? Why don’t they 
raise a splendid great Army of them, for Home? Do 
read me some more, Eleanor ! ” 

Eleanor’s incongruously precise little voice had read 
out scraps about runaway mustangs, tornadoes, the 
mild excitement of an earthquake, of a ride in front of 
a runaway bull. 

44 And he always seems to be getting among people 
with knives and revolvers 4 going for ’ each other. Or 
else nearly breaking his neck somewhere — — ” 

Rosamond’s eyes had danced over this description. 
4f I say, what a lovely man! Good-looking? ” 

44 I’ve no photograph ; I lost the snapshots he sent,” 
Eleanor had said. 44 Father said not.” 

44 Fathers are the worst possible judges of looks in 
young men. I do like him for hoisting about those great 
hulking castings ! So different from anything we ever 
have to do ! ” the secretary-girl had sighed whimsically. 
44 And his being so keen on concessions for that oil 
they’re prospecting about! What’s the oil for, 
Eleanor ? ” 

44 Lamps, I expect.” 

44 Ah! You’ve never written to ask! You can’t be 
really fearfully interested in this man ! ” 

44 Rosamond, no girl would be 4 fearfully interested ’ 
in a man she hadn’t seen.” 

44 Oh, wouldn’t she? Not when she’d promised to 


“ DARLING ” PER PRO 


15 


marry him? Not when he was going to be all that in 
her life? A fiance! Well, if he’s nothing else, he is at 
least the man who keeps the other men out! ” 

Eleanor had said nothing. Extraordinary, the inter- 
est that Rosamond showed in this subject! Rosamond 
had continued: 

44 And you’ve all his letters to piece him together out 
of! To keep guessing about! I could imagine a girl 
being perfectly thrilled over a fiance of that sort. Much 
more so than over an ordinary young man with a bowler 
and a walking-stick, say, that she had seen ! ” 

44 Yes, but you’re romantic. I am not. I’m so prac- 
tical,” Eleanor had gravely explained. 44 And I think 
that it’ll make me a very good wife for a man who 
will probably spend three-quarters of his time carrying 
those castings and things up and down precipices at the 
other end of the earth. He’s his interests ; I’ve mine. 
And when we meet, we’ve this place in common. I am 
sure we shall be quite good friends.” 

“ Friends ! ” Rosamond had echoed, pityingly. 

44 Some married people who begin by — by adoring 
each other,” Eleanor had remarked, 44 end by being 
n-n-n-not even friends.” 

44 M’m. But then they’ve had something out of it,” 
her friend and secretary had said, thinking — 44 like go- 
ing to a music-hall show with one ripping 4 turn ’ in it, 
and all the rest feeble. Better than sitting out a whole 
long dull play without one redeeming laugh ! ” Rosa- 


16 


“ DARLING ” PER PRO 


mond Fayre had decided. “ I’d risk being bored for the 
rest of my married life, to pay for a really thrilling 
courtship ! ” 

“ Well, he’s practical, too,” Eleanor had concluded 
before she took up her Club accounts again. “ At least 
from his letters. That’s all I really know about him ! ” 

The letter which Rosamond Fayre had just been given 
to answer was certainly “ practical ” enough. 

It was written in the particularly small masculine 
handwriting which is so often guided by a particularly 
large masculine hand, and the crackling foreign sheet of 
it had arrived from some out-of-the-way No-Man’s Land 
beyond the Andes, where Ted Urquhart with a party of 
other men had been sinking wells for that precious, that 
coveted oil. The rough, open-air camp-life, the bonfires, 
the tea-tins, the scraps of men’s talk and laughter, the 
blue, up-curling cloud of tobacco-smoke, the jingling of 
horse’s harness — a whiff of this unfamiliar atmosphere 
seemed brought right over the seas to that secluded 
English drawing-room by the few terse sentences of 
Urquhart’s — well, it certainly could not be called a love - 
letter, Rosamond decided, with stars of amusement shin- 
ing in her larkspur-blue eyes. It began, “ My dear 
Eleanor,” and ended, “ Yours ever affectionately, 
T.U.” Like a brother and sister! 

There was a postcript which merely said, “ It will be 
nearly June, I suppose, by the time this letter gets to 
the dear old Court. Write and tell me what is out in 


“ DARLING ” PER PRO 


17 


the garden, and if those last roses which Uncle Henry 
was so keen on have turned out any good. The place 
ought to be looking lovely.” 

“ The place looking lovely ! ” commented Rosamond. 
“ Not even one question about how the girl is looking ! 
I wonder if he doesn’t even want to know? How sick 
I shall be if the man I marry — when that fortunate 
individual turns up — ever writes like this ! He won’t, 
though. Rosamond’s lover won’t be ‘ level-headed ’ — 
at any rate, not as far as anything to do with Rosa- 
mond is concerned,” decided that young woman, with a 
toss of her own beautiful head. “ But to work ! ” 

She dipped her pen in the ink and primmed her rather 
large red begonia of a mouth into an imitation of 
Eleanor’s small one as she wrote: — 

“ My dear Ted, 

“ Thank you for your letter of April the First. 
I was very glad to hear that you were quite well, and 
that you had arrived safely at your destination.” 

(“ Not that she — Eleanor — really cares a capital Dee 
how you are, or where you’ve arrived,” interpolated 
Eleanor’s new secretary, aside. “ It’s a matter of life 
and death to her that five hundred factory girls should 
have a rise of a shilling a week in wages, but as to what 
happens to a mere prospective husband — Well, but what 
ought she to say to him? It’s always ‘ ought * with her. 


18 


“ DARLING ” PER PRO 


I wonder if she’ll get any better — worse, I mean — when 
Ted comes home and tries to teach her — other things, 
I do hope so. Well—”) 

She took up her pen again. 

“ Yes ! — The place ” 

(“Better put a capital P there to show how all- 
important.”) 

— “ The Place looks delightful. It’s a great pity that 
you can’t see it, since you’ve missed every June here for 
so many years. I hope that you may contrive to come 
home, as you suggest some time next summer — — ” 

(“ That’s not too eager and forward, I trust,” 
thought Rosamond.) 

— “ and that you will not be disappointed in — — ” 

(“your reception as a lover. — No, I mean, of 
course — — •”) 

— “ the alterations that there are — such as the new fish- 
pond, and the continuation of the hedge beyond the 
cherry-orchard at The Court.” 

She leant back. 

(“Now what had I better put? He’s not wildly in- 
terested in her creches and clubs and girls, I can tell. 
I’ll just sum it up vaguely.”) 


“ DARLING ” PER PRO 19 

“ 1 have been very busy lately. We had a garden- 
party here last week. Need I add that there was a 
thunderstorm in the middle of it? The purple dahlias 
in Mrs. Bishop’s toque got drenched and dripped in 
mauve streaks down her face. It looked as if her com- 
plexion had run very badly.” 

(“Steady! Eleanor wouldn’t have written that. 
She never makes fun of people,” said Rosamond. 44 I 
shall have to make a fair copy — a Rosamond Fayre 
copy — of all this. I’ll begin again from 4 thunder- 
storm.’ ”) 

44 and on Wednesday we had a dinner-party. A friend 
of mine is staying here now. She has trained as a clerk, 
and I am keeping her to help me with my business corre- 
spondence — — ” 

( 4< This very letter, for example.”) 

— 44 and her name is Rosamond Fayre.” 

( 44 Hope you think it’s a pretty one, Sir.”) 

— 44 Father is quite well now, and sends his love. The 
roses that you ask after have done splendidly ” 

( 44 Flowers are safe, so I suppose I can say what I 
like here.”) 

— 44 They will trail in heavenly, scenty garlands and 


20 


“ DARLING ” PER PRO 


festoons of pink and white round the grey stone balus- 
trades of the Terrace, just like decorations for a visit 
from Royalty. Also the 4 Blue Border ’ is planned out. 
At the back stand the tallest larkspurs and delphiniums, 
then the clumps of deep blue borage ; then come the blue 
Canterbury bells, then the corn-flowers ; then blue pan- 
sies, then forget-me-nots, and lastly a thick blue row of 
lobelia, 4 underlining ’ it. I think this is all. So 
believe me, dear Ted,” wrote the girl, demurely, in the 
handwriting that was as like her school-friend’s as the 
voices of some twins are alike, 

44 Yours ever affectionately, 

44 R ” 

44 Oh, how silly,” she broke off impatiently, to scrib- 
ble a thick 44 E ” over the 44 R ” which she had inad- 
vertently written. Very nearly she had signed, in spite 
of everything, her own name. But it didn’t show. No; 
it read quite evenly and naturally 

44 Yours ever affectionately , 

“ Eleanor Urquhart .” 

She must practise that signature. She began to do 
so on a loose sheet of paper. Then she must make that 
fair copy of this epistle. But there was no particular 
hurry. ... 44 To think that another girl — not Elea- 
nor — might, instead of deputing the job to a paid 
clerk, be getting quite a lot of fun out of writing love- 


“ DARLING ” PER PRO 


21 


letters to a fiance who’d never set eyes on her ! ” 
she reflected as her pen traced curly “ E’s ” and 
“ U’s.” 

“ For instance, I — if I were Eleanor — should make 
quite a good game out of interesting the man, making 
him keener to see me every letter I wrote. (She crosses 
the ‘ t ’ in Urquhart more like this.) One or two should 
be as brief and brisk and business-like as if they came 
from the Manager of his Bank. The next should ask 
him what colours he liked a girl — his girl— to wear? 
Then I’d write rather a piteous one, as if I were beg- 
ging, between the lines, to be set free from an arrange- 
ment that was spoiling my life, standing in the way of 
my possible happiness with somebody else ! ” 

Rosamond, taking out a fresh sheet of paper to make 
her fair copy, laughed enjoyingly over this immemorial 
scheme. 

“ That would be a good one ! But the same mail 
should bring him another note asking him whether he did 
not think that it might not sometimes seem a tiny bit 
dull for a girl all alone in this great Convent of a Court? 
I should wait until he replied to that, I think.” 

She tucked the rose she wore into greater security at 
her breast. 

“ Then” she told herself, “ I’d begin to flirt a little ; 
on paper. There might even be a pet name or so tucked 
into a postscript — so ” 

She began scribbling idly on the rough draft. 


22 


“DARLING” PER PRO 


— “ and crossed out again — not that a man couldn’t 
read it, if he tried. So ! ” 

She made a charming picture as she sat there, this 
royally built, golden-haired girl smiling at the desk, 
playing this “ game ” with a phantom-lover of her own, 
for at the moment Eleanor and Eleanor’s fiance — prob- 
ably a milk-sop, and surely a stick! — were forgotten. 
Rosamond Fayre, lost in a very silly, very common, and 
very natural form of day-dream, was away with the 
Prince Charming whose elusive face smiles back into 
every girlish face that has ever bent over a wishing-well. 

“ Of all the over-worked words in the English lan- 
guage, the strangest seems to be 4 Darling ” Rosamond 
Fayre told herself and her dream-sweetheart of the 
moment. 44 You say it to a girl, but it wouldn’t sound 
silly and out of place to a man — provided it were the 
right man. 4 My darling! * Everybody uses it — yet it 
isn’t hackneyed. Jokes and comic-paper stories and 
music-hall songs are cram-full of it — and still it’s never, 
never vulgar ” 

Her thoughts broke off, as from the tall white mantel- 
piece the clock, held up between two gilded nymphs, 
chimed twice. 

“ Half-past four ! ” she exclaimed. 44 Mercy ! I must 
take this up for Eleanor to pass. . . . H’m. I suppose 
Eleanor has never written to her young man in that 
way in her life. Well, you can’t very well dash off 
4 darlings ’ per pro. I’ll copy this tidily.” 


“ DARLING ” PER PRO 


23 


She did so. She tore up one letter ; then she carried 
the other to the big, airy lavender-breathing linen- 
room where Miss Urquhart, among the imposing piles 
of sheets, looked small and dark and busy as an ant in 
a snow-drift. 

“Eleanor, do you mind looking over this? Will it 
do? ” 

“ 6 Do ’ — oh, yes, dear, I am sure it will do beauti- 
fully,” said Eleanor, with the merest perfunctory glance 
above an armful of pillow-cases marked URQUHART. 
HOSTEL. 1914. “ Thanks so much, Rosamond. Will 
you see that it goes off? ” 

“ What ! — As it is ? ” suggested Rosamond, mischiev- 
ously. “No postscripts? ” 

“Postscripts? What about?” said Eleanor the 
practical. 

“ Oh, I don’t know,” murmured Rosamond. 

She herself could have thought of half a dozen tiny 
written messages that would have been as a hand waved, 
a glance thrown, to any young man who had received 
them. 

“ It’s really a waste that I haven’t any one to write 
to on my own account! Except Cecil — No, I’m not 
going to write to him or to any one unless it’s for the 
one and only real right reason,” decided Rosamond, 
even while her employer, holding back that note 
to her secretary, decreed, “ This says all that’s 
needed.” 


24 


“ DARLING ” PER PRO 


Rosamond took back that note with a small, half- 
humourous shrug. 

The gesture shook the rose that Rosamond wore in 
the breast of her white crepe shirt into shedding a 
shower of pink petals upon the open sheet. 

“ Ah, I tell you what,” said Rosamond, upon one of 
her sudden impulses. “ Those had better be sent in the 
letter! Won’t you? ” 

“What? Those loose petals?” said Eleanor over 
her shoulder. “ Why? Those aren’t from the new 
roses Ted was asking about, are they? ” 

“ Never mind. They’re English rose-leaves from an 
English garden — ah, think of that, in a foreign coun- 
try! Don’t you think they’d please any Englishman, 
far from his home? I know they would,” pleaded Rosa- 
mond, in a voice still soft from that day-dream of hers. 
“ Put them in, Eleanor ! ” 

“ Very well, if you like.” And the other girl, kind 
and untouched as any child, slipped into the crisp grey 
foreign envelope a dozen sweetly scented pink petals. 

“ Those,” said Rosamond Fayre, with a smile, “ will 
do instead of a postscript ! ” 

She did not think again of the saying that the post- 
script is the part which contains all that is most in- 
teresting in a woman’s letter. 


CHAPTER II 


A MAN'S ANSWER 

“ Many thanks, my dear Eleanor, for the last three 
letters which have just arrived together — especially for 
the one all about the Blue Border, and the Roses.” 

“ Nothing about the petals,” thought Rosamond, to 
whom this letter had been handed as a matter of course 
for the Secretary to answer by Eleanor. 

“ By the way,” the letter went on, “ were you in the 
least little bit of a temper when you wrote? Or is 
that my mistake? Don’t you think people’s moods show 
in their handwriting? Your writing this time seemed 
to have got more dashing and determined,” wrote Mr. 
Ted Urquhart. “Thank you for hoping I may come 
home next summer, but I don’t know if I shall do that 
after all. The man I’m with has determined to — ” 
Here followed a catalogue of the man’s plans — very level- 
headed ones they seemed to Rosamond. Then came — 
“ Don’t be offended, will you, about my having said 
that about a temper. A girl ought to have a gleam of 
a temper of her own, just to show a man she’s not 

“‘Too bright and good 

For human nature’s daily food.’ 

You know the rest of that ancient verse.” 

25 


26 A MAN’S ANSWER 

Rosamond did ; she laughed. Then she blushed a 
little. 

44 I never read verse ; one really hasn’t time,” Elea- 
nor excused herself. 44 What is the quotation, Rosa- 
mond?” 

44 Oh, it’s from Wordsworth. I will look it up for 
you — something about 4 human nature’s daily food — 

4 Praise, blame, tears ’ — and er — those sort of 
things.” 

And she continued to herself, 44 Somehow one can't 
quote even the milkiest sort of love poetry right through 
to Eleanor ! One can’t say 4 Praise, blame, tears, 
kisses ’ — 4 Kisses ’ wouldn’t ever be 4 daily food ’ to 
her ” 

She checked herself. 

44 But they’ll have to be, some day ! She is engaged, 
and after all he will come back, I presume, in the course 
of time, this weird young man? Then there’ll be a dif- 
ference, surely? For instance, she’ll begin ‘minding’ 
what she puts on — instead of not seeming to see what’s 
becoming and what isn’t. When she begins to want to 
please him, she’ll drop those District-visiting blouses 
and those virtuous little hats of hers. Oh, he’ll teach 
her. . . . His last letter was comparatively personal ! 
It seemed to be taking quite an interest in her temper 
and her handwriting — mine, by the way. I’m glad he 
liked the bit about the Blue Border.” 

She laughed again. What did it matter to Rosa- 


A MAN’S ANSWER 27 

mond what another girl’s fiance had liked in the letter 
that had been written by her secretary? 

“ Anyhow,” she reminded herself, “ it didn’t seem to 
make him want to come home and see her any sooner! 
Interesting sort of affair — and here am I allowed to 
peep at both sides of it ! ” 

Her interest was not much more than this kind of 
curiosity. For the next three weeks it — and things in 
general — remained just the same. 

Then something happened. 

In the June of Nineteen Fourteen, when it still seemed 
as if Peace would never spread her dove’s wings to fly 
from this country, when red English roses were ablaze 
on the Terrace of The Court, and bees noisy in the 
borders of mignonette and in the tall towers of sweet- 
peas, there arrived at Urquhart’s Court, unheralded, a 
visitor; a tall, lithe, abnormally sun-burnt young man, 
in clothes that spoke — first of hard weather and harder 
wear, and next of the first-rate Bond Street outfitters 
that had known them new. This stranger, ignoring the 
new butler’s pompous “ What name, Sir? ” strode gaily 
into the great hall as if the house were his by right, 
and called in a big, boyish voice — 

“ Uncle ! ” 

The study-door opened, and Eleanor’s father looked 
out. He was a half-dreamy, half-fretful looking old 
gentleman, with a silvery beard like the portraits of 
Lord Tennyson, to whose period Mr. Henry Urquhart 


28 A MAN’S ANSWER 

belonged far more than to the present hustling Twen- 
tieth Century. 

“ What’s happened — who’s this ? Why, my — my 
dear boy, — Ted ! ” he cried, incredulously, with his 
faded, grey scholar’s eyes blinking under his white locks 
at the splendidly vital figure of the young man before 
him — “ It is Ted, isn’t it? Bless me — and nobody was 
sent to meet you! Now, how was that, how was that? ” 
rather querulously — “ Eleanor never told me you were 
coming. Nobody ever tells me anything. Most unfor- 
tunate! Nobody to meet My dear boy, if you’ll 

believe me, I — I never even heard that you’d written to 
say you were coming ! ” 

He put out a hand like a pale and chilly root, and 
laid it on the young man’s hard shoulder. 

“ I never said so, Uncle Henry, I meant to turn up 
unannounced. I meant to take you all by surprise!” 
declared the traveller hurriedly. “ Now, will you be 
very kind and excuse me for the present, Uncle? I 
want to introduce myself to Eleanor, and ” 

The pale, chilly hand was lifted again. 

“Wait a bit, wait a bit. Come into my study and 
sit down for a few minutes. Dear me! I was never 

so startled in my life. Take us by surprise Yes, 

but I wish you’d said you were going to,” protested the 
elder Urquhart, as he led the way into his own room. 
It was overshadowed by those great yews at the back 
of The Court; and, with its four walls lined with brown 


A MAN’S ANSWER 


29 


books, its wide table littered with manuscript, seemed 
as chilly as a cellar, as sunless as a vault, as void of life 
and homeliness as a museum. Young Urquhart of the 
impatient eyes involuntarily shivered a little as he 
looked about it. She — Eleanor — wouldn’t spend too 
much time in this family mausoleum, surely — He didn’t 
want to see her, even for the first time, here ! 

“Won’t you sit down, boy? Bless my soul, you’re 
very like my brother Clive, your poor father. He didn’t 
seem able to sit still for a minute. ...” said 
the old man. “ It’ll be luncheon in a quarter of an 
hour ” 

The young man laughed, springing up from his chair 
again. 

“ Yes, I know that, Uncle. That’s why I wanted to 
pay my respects to her — to Eleanor at once.” 

“ Dear me ! — the unrest — the hurry of this genera- 
tion ” 

“Hurry? I’m afraid I’ve scarcely hurried as much 
as I might,” said Ted Urquhart, with a flash of very 
white teeth in that very brown face. “ I’ve waited three 
years before. ...” 

The old man blinked at him. Years did not convey 
much to him. But he said, “ Then I don’t quite under- 
stand why you’ve rushed back without any warning 
now ? ” 

“ Er — no ; it seems queer,” said Eleanor’s fiance, who 
didn’t quite understand it himself. Why had the in- 


30 


A MAN’S ANSWER 


terest he’d felt about the nice little girl at home whom 
he was, for such excellent reasons, to marry — all in good 
time, and when more important things had been attended 
to — why had this very mild interest flamed up all of a 
sudden, and for the first time, into a blazing curiosity 
to see, after all, what she was like? Why had there 
seemed some subtle hint of the girl’s atmosphere, her 
charm, her lure, conveyed for the very first time be- 
tween the even lines of her very last letter to him ? Why 
had he felt that a handful of once pink, still sweet rose- 
petals, pressed in the envelope, had brought with them 
the message — “ Come home and seek me. Come and 
court in person the girl who picked this rose ” ? It was 
irrational — fantastic. Still — there it was — Yes ! This 
was what had happened to him ! 

“ I had to come over sometime ! ” he laughed, fidget- 
ing. “ So now I’m here, the sooner the better. Will 
you do me a favour, Uncle? Don’t send for Eleanor, 
let me go to her myself. Where am I likely to find her ? 
Where will she be? In the lily-garden, near that new 

fish-pond she tells me of, or ” 

He was at the door, ready to search the grounds, 

before his uncle put in 

“ My dear boy, I am very sorry, but really, you have 
only yourself to blame. Why didn’t you give us due 
warning? For your own sake you ought to have written 
— or even if you’d sent a wire! The fact is — most un- 
fortunate ! — that you won’t find Eleanor anywhere 


A MAN’S ANSWER 


31 


about,” announced Eleanor’s father, fussily regretful, 
“ she isn’t here.” 

The sun-burnt face fell. 

“Not here!” echoed Eleanor’s fiance , very blankly. 
“Why, where is she, then? ” 

“She’s in France. It’s a little fishing-village near 
Boulogne, where she has one of her undertakings. She’s 
up to her eyes in work over it, inaugurating this Holi- 
day Hostel for her 4 girls.’ You know her girls, Ted; 
she cares for them more than for anything else in the 
world,” said the old man, “ always will, I’m afraid.” 

Ted Urquhart smiled again. He was not “ afraid.” 
If it had been not just fifty girls, but one young man who 
occupied all Eleanor’s time and thought, things would 
have looked black. But a couple of hundred other girls. 
Well! The thought of them weighed lighter than a 
dozen dry rose-petals. 

“Yes; she’s over there now, with her friend, Miss 
Fayre,” her father was explaining, “ and it’s very little 
I hear from them beyond a line or so on a postcard with 
a view of the harbour or a girl in a Boulogne fish-wife’s 
cap on it. They were to stay a month. However, as 
you are here, Eleanor shall be sent for ” 

“ No, no, she shan’t,” said young Ted, impetuously. 
“ I shall go on over there to her, at once.” 

“ You will? Bless me, how you fly about, you young 
fellows, nowadays ! ” murmured Mr. Urquhart. “ It’s 
a long way to France, Clive — Ted, I mean.” 


32 


A MAN’S ANSWER 


Ted laughed. From Urquhart’s Court, via the 
South-Eastern Railway, Charing Cross, and Boulogne, 
across to this little village where Eleanor was putting in 
her time before marriage, seemed no more of a “ trek ” 
to him after his journeyings, than a stroll across the 
mint-sauce lawn at the Court. 

“ At least you’ll write and tell her that you are com- 
ing? We’ll both write, Ted,” said the old man, turning 
to that littered table. 

“ If you don’t mind, Sir, we’ll do nothing of the sort,” 
put in the young man. “ I’ve just been struck by an 
idea.” 

He had. It was one of those ideas which seem at first 
so eminently satisfactory — and sane. Afterwards they 
appear so fatuously silly. And, later still, what would 
one not give to recall them, these tragically ill-fated 
“ ideas ” ? 

“ I shall go over there and see if I can’t get to know 
her without letting her guess who I am ! ” declared the 
young man who was engaged to Eleanor Urquhart. 
“ If, after all these years, we have a sort of prepared 
meeting, each of us trying to say and do the correct 
thing and to make it pleasant and easy for the other 
party, it’ll be — quite simply — a frost! We shall be 
desperately self-conscious, and hard-boiled stiff with 
shyness. At least that’s how it would take me, Sir! 
Enough to put any girl off at once. I want her to see 


A MAN’S ANSWER 


me first without her having any idea that I’m the man 
she’s pledged herself to marry.” 

“ I don’t see,” said old Mr. Urquhart, mildly, “ what 
difference this idea of yours will make.” 

“ It’ll make all the difference in the world,” said Ted 
Urquhart, speaking more truly than he knew. 

And so it was that he would only stay at the Court 
for luncheon, and then left that rose-garlanded earthly 
paradise, which somehow seemed more desirable to him 
now even than in his dreams as a wanderer, for the 
express up to Charing Cross, the boat-train to Folke- 
stone, the boat across to Boulogne, and the cart that 
took him a jolting ten miles further to the sleepy village 
that was then just a cluster of fishermen’s cottages, two 
hotels, a post-office and Debit Tabac and — Eleanor’s 
Hostel. 

Ted, carrying a walking-stick and a kit-bag pat- 
terned with a score of different coloured luggage-labels, 
made the whole journey in under eleven hours from the 
moment that he had set foot in the hall of the Court. 

Such was his hurry, after a dilatory year, to face his 
Fate at last. 

And the very next morning he did meet his Fate — 
with a vengeance. 


CHAPTER III 


THE MEETING 

Of all the duties which Rosamond Fay re had so far 
performed in her capacity as secretary and right-hand 
woman to her friend Eleanor Urquhart, she most en- 
joyed accompanying her on that trip to the Holiday 
Hostel in the little fishing-village on the still so peaceful 
French coast. 

Rosamond adored France, the land known to Sir 
Philip Sidney as 44 that sweet Enemy ! ” the country 
that even in the June before the War was friendly 
ground to an Englishwoman. 

She loved to wake up to find people — different in look 
and dress from people at home — doing unusual things 
at unusual times. She loved that unfamiliar atmosphere 
of roasting coffee, combined with the smell of sun-on- 
seaweed. She loved the clack of a foreign tongue. She 
loved to feel that higher tide of gaiety and vitality 
which seems to sweep the other side of the Channel only. 
She loved the little village with its busy 44 door-step 99 
life; she loved to see the fisher-women, in their little 
white sun-bonnets, sitting mending their nets in the 
cobbled yards; the children, with their burnt-straw- 
coloured hair cropped to the bone, shrimping for 
34 


THE MEETING 


35 


“ crevettes ” in the rock-pools ; the smart French visit- 
ors — little girls dressed as sailor-boys, plumps mammas 
who appeared at their hotel doors at eleven o’clock in 
the morning dressed in white bed-jackets, over bright 
satin tango-petticoats; and she particularly enjoyed all 
these details in the society of Eleanor’s girls, upon whom 
they were dawning for the first time. 

“ Eleanor’s girls,” for whom the house built by an 
artist at the other end of the village had been converted 
into a Hostel, were to be brought over, six at a time, 
during the summer months. There were at present, 
however, only five of them. The sixth candidate was an 
English milliner’s assistant who worked in a Paris hat- 
shop, and, as Eleanor had only heard of her by letter, 
and as she (who had accepted a husband by letter only) 
preferred to select her “ girls ” by a personal inter- 
view, she had judged it better to make a short trip 
to Paris, combining a commission of her father’s 
with regard to some rare Rosicrucian documents 
with some personal enquiries as to the young shop- 
girl. 

Thus it was that, for a whole week, Rosamond was 
left in charge of the Hostel and of the five girls. 

Now, these girls, who were any age from nineteen to 
thirty, and who were treated by strict little Eleanor 
Urquhart as if they were children, treated her in turn 
as if each one of them were her devoted nurse. They ad- 
mired her — immensely; but not for the qualities on 


36 


THE MEETING 


which she prided herself ; not for her managing powers, 
not because she could arrange with railway companies 
and steamship authorities to give them trips abroad on 
money which they could not have made go further than 
a week-end at Clacton, but because that sort of child- 
like, incomprehensible innocence of hers seemed to set 
her apart from them and above them. Instinctively 
they checked any 44 rowdiness,” they 44 censored ” con- 
versation, expressions, risky songs, when Miss Urqu- 
hart was near. For in the three great divisions of girl- 
hood one finds, in nine cases out of ten, the Potential 
Mother and the Potential Coquette alike ready to pay 
homage to the Potential Nun. 

Yes; Miss Urquhart they revered — and obeyed. 
Rosamond they loved; Rosamond, who could trim hats 
for them, and play tango-music, and tell fortunes, and 
advise them with regard to that question of perennial 
poignancy — their young men. 

44 Miss Fayre knows all right,” as one of the girls 
declared one day through a mouthful of liqueur choco- 
lates bought at the Debit Tabac. This girl was a Jam- 
Hand, who worked at that Corner of Charing Cross 
Road that always smells of hot strawberries and pickles, 
and her costume, no matter how warm the weather, was 
always completed by a long black velvet coat, heavily 
trimmed with braid, a wide black hat with an ostrich- 
plume, and a stole of black fox. She gave the furs a 
toss as she continued, still munching — 44 Somehow you 


THE MEETING 


37 


can’t see any one — except p’raps Pansy, out of cheek — 
talking about fellows to Miss Urquhart!” 

“ Yet,” murmured the girl who was sitting on the 
sands with her in the patch of shadow cast by an up- 
turned boat, “ Miss Urquhart’s got off herself.” 

“ She has and she hasn’t. Her chap’s always away ! ” 
“ Anyhow — here, greedy, greedy ! Have you finished 

the lot? I never! — she ought to understand ” 

“Well, she does and she doesn’t, if you know what I 
mean,” said the Jam-Hand. The other girl, pale, 
slender, and wearing glasses, was one of the young ladies 
who work a model typewriter in a big plate-glassed 
shop-front under the eyes of the passer-by down a 
crowded City thoroughfare. 

For they were of all sorts and conditions, Eleanor’s 
protegees! With the Jam-Hand and the Typist there 
stayed the Salvation Army Lassie, a scrap of big-eyed, 
sweet-voiced nervousness, who nevertheless took the solo 
in street meetings, the red-haired, rather “ superior ” 
Blouse-finisher, and, last but not least of Eleanor’s re- 
sponsibilities, a young woman of opulent figure and with 
a pair of eyes that were even saucier than her voice and 
manner, who had played “ Principal Boy ” in a 
provincial Christmas pantomime, and who at other 
times was “ on with the crowd ” in a sketch at the 
“ Halls.” 

She was at present what she described as “ resting ” 
— but this did not mean that she was ever weary in her 


38 


THE MEETING 


work of causing Miss Urquhart constant anxiety on the 
score of the Hostel Rules. They were few, necessary, 
and judicious, but to the Principal Boy they seemed to 
act as a spur rather than a curb. 

“ Pansy, my dear ! ” Miss Urquhart would say, quite 
gently, as that buxom, yawning beauty sat down to the 
breakfast-table with her hair, curling riotously over a 
dressing-jacket of flimsiest muslin and lace, down to her 
sumptuous hips. “ I think you have forgotten your 
hair.” 

“ Why ! Miss Urquhart, I never get the chance ! I’m 
never left long enough alone about it ! ” with a twisting 
of a tress that shaded from tangerine-colour at the tip 
to burnt-sienna at the root round two plump fingers. 
“ Oh, if there’s a thing that the boys admire, it’s a nice 
head of hair ! Now, Miss Fay re 1 You back me up 
about that, eh? ” 

Rosamond, primming her mouth, would look another 
way, while the skirmish between her employer and the 
Terror of the Hostel would shift ground to the subject 
of another regulation. No girl was to appear with 
powder or paint upon her face. 

“ But a soup song of powder, Miss Urquhart! Why, 
whatever’s wrong with that? Why, they use it for the 
little babies ! They do, straight ! Turn ’em up after 
they come out of their little tubsies and powder ’em all 
over lovely! Haven’t you seen ’em, Miss Urquhart? 
You know, at your mothers’ meetin’s?” 


THE MEETING 


Then Eleanor, a little more stiffly : 46 That, is different. 
That is not the same as your face — — ’’ 

44 Oh, come ! Give us a chance 1 I know that , Miss 
Urquhart ! ” with a burst of rollicking laughter. 
44 Still — ! Oh, I do think a quite little baby is ser-sweet 
(sometimes). Don’t you? I could eat ’em! But 
if you don’t keep their poor little skins nice and 
soft — — ” 

44 1 explained the — the — the rules to you before you 
came,” Eleanor would go on manfully, to this young 
person, her senior by five years in age, and by a century 
according to other reckonings. 44 P-P-P-paint ” 

44 No paint on me, Miss Urquhart!” virtuously 
from the Principal Boy. 44 Haven’t brought a stick of 
it with me — — ” 

44 B-But your mouth — — ” 

The mouth in question, large and moist and curly, 
opened as if to sudden enlightenment. 

44 Oh! Lip-salve! Two-and-a-half-Rose ! You can’t 
call a touch of that paint? It’s doctor’s orders ” — 
from the unabashed Pansy. 44 Keeps the chaps off. No, 

I don’t mean what you mean, Miss Urquhart ” 

And so on. 

Before lunch-time, however, the Principal Boy would 
have removed the abhorred make-up, and would be hav- 
ing a competition for the quickest and brownest coat 
of sunburn with Annie the Salvation Lassie and Miss 
Beading the Blouse-finisher. 


40 


THE MEETING 


It says much for Eleanor’s authority and influence 
that she kept the reins in her own hands, and caused 
these varying elements to live in comparative peace 
and charity with each other while they were under her 
charge. She was always the head of them — even of 
rebellious Pansy ! while Rosamond, as she herself would 
have frankly told you, was one of themselves, even 
though they did call her “ Miss, dear,” and allow her 
to go first into a room. 

“ I do hope I shall be able to keep even that vestige 
of authority while Eleanor’s away,” thought Rosamond 
to herself, doubtfully, at half-past seven in the morning 
of the day after Ted Urquhart had turned up unex- 
pectedly in search of his -fiancee at The Court. “ Here 
are four whole more days of my viceregency to run ; if 
only I manage to keep the dear, bubbling-over things 
out of mischief so long! Heaven send that they don’t 
get cut off by the tide, or drowned with cramp, or that 
they don’t make clandestine expeditions into Boulogne ” 
— going into Boulogne unaccompanied by Eleanor or 
her second-in-command was contrary to Hostel rules — 
“ as long as I’m in charge ! Girls are always breaking 
out in some fresh place! Pansy, having promised me 
as a personal favour to leave off that mask of powder, 
takes to liquid white! One comfort about them all is, 
that quite a nice large slice of the day’s over before 
they roll out of their little beds, and I have that to the 
good.” So she finished her cafe complet early and 


THE MEETING 


41 


alone, and then strolled out of the Hostel, along the 
green downs where the courses of tiny rivulets were 
marked by meandering strips of tall mint that hid the 
water. She skirted a tall cliff of crumbling red earth, 
and passed along to the great stretches of sand border- 
ing a greeny-blue belt of sea. Rosamond followed the 
creamy tide-mark of it towards Le Touquet. 

As it was still so early in the morning, her hair was 
down, long past the belt of her white skirt, not that 
she shared the preference of the girls for breakfasting 
in uncoiffed hair, not because it was wet from bathing. 
Rosamond Fayre had far too much respect for her 
beautiful hair to ruin it with sea-water. When bathing, 
it was always protected by a rubber cap, the crudeness 
of which was concealed by the swathing of a long silk 
sash. But the early morning sunshine seemed to bring 
out all the light in that great mane, and Rosamond gave 
it a sun-bath as often as possible. She shook it well 
over her cheeks, however, so that the sun which brought 
lights to her hair need not bring freckles to her 
face. 

Presently she turned, and followed the track of her 
own white sand-shoes back again along the water’s 
edge. Even as she walked, she became conscious, very 
gradually, of a feeling of something impending , some- 
thing going to happen. Whether it was a pleasant or 
a tragic happening she did not know ; part of the feel- 
ing was that something, some one strange had been fol- 


42 


THE MEETING 


lowing her, even as she walked. She was going to turn 
round. Then something else happened which rooted 
her to the sand where she stood. 

Her face was still shielded by that falling golden 
shower, but the little pink ears under the hair caught 
a sound which for the moment froze Rosamond’s warm 
young blood. The sound of a scream ! A shrill, girlish 
voice — two voices — screaming in terror. 

It came from the direction of the cliff. 

Flinging back her hair, Rosamond looked up. 

There, half-way between the sands at the bottom and 
the thymy turf at the top of the cliff, she saw what 
seemed for an instant like one splash of dark-blue paint, 
and another splash of vivid cherry-colour against the 
dark-red wall of earth. Two figures on a ledge that was 
as far above her head as it was below the cliff-edge — two 
girls — two of Eleanor’s — of her own charges ! 

For that brilliant-cherry-coloured frieze coat be- 
longed to the Principal Boy ; that slender shape in blue 
was the Salvation Army Lassie. Yes 1 They had 
u broken out in a fresh place ” after all ! And this be- 
fore eight in the morning! 

They’d climbed up, somehow, and now they’d turned 
giddy and could not take another step one way or the 
other. Clinging like drowning insects to the side of 
a cistern, flattening themselves to the rock, shrinking 
as far as possible from that dizzy edge, they could do 
nothing but scream, panic-stricken, for help. 


THE MEETING 


43 


They had lost their heads completely. Catching 
sight of Rosamond hurrying along the sea-margin, the 
Salvation Army Lassie shrieked again: 

“ Miss, dear! Miss ! ” 

Now, the correct thing for Rosamond to have done 
would have been to call back, composedly, for the girls 
to stay as they were, without moving or looking down, 
while she fetched help from the nearest fishermen, then 
set off immediately — a matter of a few minutes only. 
This is what she should have done. 

The unfortunate and humiliating fact is, how- 
ever, that at this juncture Rosamond also lost her 
head. 

For a second more she stood rooted where she was. 
Then she took an aimless run forward; then another 
backward, like those pedestrians so dreaded by drivers 
of motor-buses, who complicate London’s traffic by their 
highly nervous attempts to cross the streets. Then she 
cried out, as helpless with terror as the girls above her, 
“Oh, what shall I do? They’ll fall and break their 
necks — I know they will — Oh — — ” 

Then she whirled round again, almost into the arms 
of some one who had come quickly up from behind a 
jutting-out rock, a tall some one in a blue blazer and 
white flannel trousers and with a rough bathing-towel 
cast muffler-wise about his neck. 

“ What, is it P ” asked a quick, very pleasant mascu- 
line voice. “ Can I help ! ” 


44 THE MEETING 

It was with these six words that the situation — and 
incidentally the life-history of Rosamond Fayre — were 
broken into by Ted Urquhart. 

Who — what he was, she had no time to think. Here 
in this solitary spot, dropped down by some special dis- 
pensation of Providence upon the sands, appeared at this 
awful moment a man — she scarcely realised at the mo- 
ment the added advantages of his being an Englishman 
and a gentleman — to the rescue ! 

“ Look ! ” she gasped, and pointed upwards at the 
cliff — at the girls perched like a couple of alien birds 
upon that ledge. 

This man took in the situation with less than a look. 

Then he spoke quickly, but unhurriedly. 

“ It is quite all right. There’s no danger. But you 
must — No! Don’t look up there. Look at me. 
Listen ! ” He had caught her arm, and, holding it, gave 
it a short, authoritative, and very heartening shake. 
“ Now! You have to go up to the village by the short- 
cut. There. Call at the nearest cottage for a rope. 
You understand? A rope. 4 Ficelle ’ in French, I be- 
lieve. Anyhow that’s near enough. Make them let it 
down over the top of the cliff, so that I can hang on to 
it while I’m getting those girls down by the way they 
came. Cliff ; falaise — It’s all right. But be quick.” 

Without a backward glance Rosamond fled stum- 
blingly up the short-cut. 

The young man in the blue blazer began making his 


THE MEETING 


45 


way, with the same unhurried quickness, up the cliff 
that became only gradually very steep. 

After the precipices to which young Urquhart was 
accustomed, precipices up which men crawled like black- 
beetles scaling a kitchen-wall, and down which mules 
felt their way as if they were descending the roof of a 
house, this cliff of crumbling French earth seemed noth- 
ing at all. But the two London girls above there — 
they were in terror of their lives. Their terror was the 
danger — for if they lost what remained to them of 
their heads — looked down — let go — slid — there would 
be at the very least a nasty fall and broken limbs. 

There was room on the narrow ledge for three. 
Presently Ted Urquhart was standing beside the slight 
form in navy-blue, which immediately clutched him as 
a midge will clutch at the grass that fishes it out of a 
picnic tea-cup. 

“ It’s quite all right,” Ted Urquhart said, again 
distinctly, slowly, and cheerily. “ There is absolutely 
nothing to be afraid of. You could get down quite all 
right by yourselves.” 

“ Oh, no,” gasped the blue-clad girl, clutching more 
wildly, while the young woman beyond her added in a 
tense voice, “ I couldn’t take a step down for love nor 
gold ! — and I shall begin to scream again in a minute ! ” 

“ Why not? ” said Ted Urquhart briskly, “ scream- 
ing’s free. Only — it doesn’t help you one scrap. Still, 
if you want to, do.” 


46 


THE MEETING 


This checked any further outcry on the part of the 
Principal Boy. Her eyes clung to the rescuer even as 
her companion’s hands clutched him. He went on. 

66 The young lady who was down there has gone to 
fetch a rope; it will be let down from the top.” 

“ Oh, I’m not going to hang on to no rope, like a 
spider! Rope-dancing’s not my particular line!” pro- 
tested the Principal Boy, hoarsely, but with a touch 
of bravado now that she was fortified by something of 
an audience. “ I’d as soon come up through the star- 
trap — that is, if I ever get down again alive ! ” 

“Pooh!” Urquhart laughed, encouragingly. Then, 
shifting his position a little, he freed one arm from the 
Lassie’s clutch and put it out towards the theatrical 
girl. 

“ If you don’t mind,” he said to Pansy, “ I’m going 
to borrow that very pretty sash-arrangement you’ve got 
round your waist. What is it, a sports-scarf? Jolly 
things, aren’t they? Girls hadn’t begun to wear those 
when I was last at home.” 

The Principal Boy shifted her scared gaze to the 
scarf he had drawn from about her. “ Whatever d’you 
want it for? ” 

“ To blindfold your friend here,” explained the self- 
possessed stranger. And, almost before she knew what 
he was doing, the Salvation Army Lassie found that the 
woven, petunia-coloured scarf was being tied firmly 
about her terrified eyes, while the stranger went on 


THE MEETING 47 

without a break in that soothing tone of encourage- 
ment. 

“ Don’t you know that firemen do this if they have 
to bring people down from a height where they aren’t 
quite comfy? Or, if a steeplejack gets up to the top 
of a high chimney and thinks he can’t come down — as 
they do, sometimes, you know, — very foolish, because 
they always can come down,” said Urquhart, authorita- 
tively. 

He ran on, outwardly careless, until presently — 

44 Ah ! — here’s the rope ! ” he exclaimed, as there were 
shouts from above, and the firm rough loop dangled a 
couple of feet above his head. 44 That young lady’s been 
jolly quick, and now I am going to be quick too. You 
see I take firm hold of this,” — he did so — 44 so that I 
can’t possibly fall. If I slip, it doesn’t matter; and 
if you’ve got firm hold of me, you can’t fall either. I 
shall take you down first,” he added quietly to the 
blindfolded, clutching Salvation Army Lassie, 44 and 
come back for your friend. Being a dancer, she’s firm 
on her feet.” 

But the handsome face of the Principal Boy paled 
suddenly to the sickly, greeny-white of a guelder-rose, 
on which the liquid powder and the pink salve stood out 
in ghastly relief. 

44 No! for God’s sake — don’t leave me!” she gasped 
out hoarsely, shrinking back against the wall of the 
ledge. 44 Don’t leave me again ! I can’t stay up here 


48 


THE MEETING 


all by myself. I’m shaking now. I shall look down 
and chuck myself over. I know I shall ” 

“ You’ll do nothing so silly ! ” broke in the man’s 
voice sharply. “ Stop it ! ” 

Then, with that peculiarly reassuring laugh of his, 
Ted added, “ My dear girl, you’re too young to die, 
and the stage can’t spare you. I’ll tell you what you’re 
going to do. Give me your hand.” He took it. “ Now 
here’s this thistle growing out of a cleft. Clutch it. 
Pull on that as hard as you like. They’re tough beg- 
gars. And here ! — in your other hand, take my watch.” 
He had drawn it out of the pocket of his broad, for- 
eign leather waist-belt. “ Keep your eyes fixed on the 
hands of that,” he ordered, firmly and cheerfully. “ By 
the time they’ve moved on five minutes I shall be back 
again to fetch you. Be plucky — I know you are plucky 
enough to stick it out for five more minutes ! ” He 
forced the conviction upon her, too, with voice and look. 
“Now” (he turned to the slighter, frailer girl, who, 
as he had rightly judged, it would have been more 
dangerous to leave), “ if you will put both your arms 
round my neck I can carry you down — yes, of 
course I can take your weight. The rope’s got 
mine.” 

And, holding on to that rope, step by step, Ted 
Urquhart, with his trembling burden, made his way 
down to a less dizzy height. 

“ There ! Now it’s only a yard or two down to the 


THE MEETING 49 

sands,” he said at last, “ you can do that yourself, can’t 
you, while I fetch the other girl? ” 

Like a cat he was up again to where the Principal 
Boy, with one plump damp hand grasping the thistle, 
stood desperately waiting, her brown eyes on the watch 
that he had slipped into the other hand. “ Only four 
minutes, you see ! ” said the rescuer briskly, “ so I’m 
before my time — a good fault, isn’t it? — especially in 
an appointment with a lady. Now let that thing go — I 
hope you haven’t got many prickles in your hands — 
and clasp them both firmly behind my neck.” 

“Ho! yes; that’s a jolly good game, played slow, 
isn’t it ! ” retorted Pansy, with an unsteady brightness. 
“ All very fine for young Annie — she’s got no one to 
worry her life out with his jealousy — don’t matter 
whose neck she fastens /itfrself round! Me with my — 
with my two dozen best boys, I’ve got to be careful. 
As for you, young man,” she babbled on, “ you give me 
your arm. I shall be right enough with that.” 

“ Splendid ! ” said Ted Urquhart. “ Hang on tight. 
Don’t have the sleeve out of my blazer. There ! That’s 

better. Now. Don’t look down. Look at me ” 

“ I s’pose you — you consider you’re easy enough to 
look at? Not but what some girls mightn’t think so — 

Ow ” (A pebble had rattled downwards.) 

“ All right, all right ! Feel for the niches with your 

feet,” he ordered. “ That's it ” 

And as they also made the journey down, he con- 


50 


THE MEETING 


tinued to speak on, brightly, complimenting the still 
shaking girl on her sureness of foot, questioning her 
about her stage-work — anything to take her thoughts 
off that drop below the ledge. 

44 Why, the other young lady,” he concluded a com- 
pliment, “ was much more frightened, you know, than 
either of you ” 

“ I daresay she was, bless her ! ” agreed the Principal 
Boy, laughing a little more naturally now that safety 
and the sands were coming so much nearer up towards 
her. 44 She didn’t want to have to arrange for no 
funerals from the Hostel, she being there in charge of 
us and all ! ” 

44 She was in charge, was she? ” said Ted Urquhart 
evenly, as he let go the now unneeded rope and the Prin- 
cipal Boy dropped his arm. And now their feet were 
set on the blessedly hard sand. 44 In charge of you. Of 
course.” 

To himself he said, 44 It was she ! It was she ! ” His 
pulses leapt. 

44 1 thought so,” he told himself. 44 1 knew it, when 
I saw her swinging along by the water’s-edge. And it 
was ! ” 

Then, with a bow to the two girls, he turned quickly 
away; partly because he felt badly in need of a drink, 
partly because the Salvation Army Lassie, who had 
collapsed on to a seaweedy boulder, was sobbing hysteri- 
cally in a way with which a Principal Boy might cope, 


THE MEETING 


51 


but with which he felt he really couldn’t ; and, chiefly ! 
because every fibre of his being was tensely strung with 
eager curiosity for another, longer, more soul-satisfy- 
ing look at that girl, with the frightened perfect face 
under the golden rain of hair ; — the girl who was “ in 
charge ” of these other girls at the Hostel — the girl 
whom he took to he none other them his own fiancee . 

“She’s beautiful. By Jove, she is beautiful!” was 
his only thought for some minutes as he strode back up 
the white, hedgeless road towards his Hotel. “ I never 
imagined her so lovely That hair ! ” Then 

“Yet I always imagined her fair, the girl I would 
marry. Just a boy’s fancy, I suppose . . . she isn’t 
much like Uncle Henry ! . . . What a golden mane ! Of 
course Helen of Troy was golden, and Ninon, and Fair 
Rosamond. I am glad Eleanor’s so fair. Eleanor. . . . 
It doesn’t sound like her . . . Helen . . . That’s 
nearer. I shall call her Helen, perhaps. ... So now 
I’ve really seen her ” 

Then, exultantly, “ I couldn’t have hoped for a better 
first meeting! Bucketed head-first into an adventure, 
by George ! Into helping her, without her ever guessing 
who I am ! That gives us a flying start. That’s luck ; 
incredible luck ! ” 

He turned to glance downwards and back at the 
sweep of sunny, wind-swept shore set between cliffs and 
laughing sea ; the scene of that encounter. 

“ And,” he thought, “ it might have had to happen 


52 


THE MEETING 


in Uncle’s musty-fusty, dark old study, full of books 
and the smell of mildew and the general atmosphere of 
a contract! A formal introduction — Uncle bringing 
her in, like a sheep to the slaughter, poor child ! 4 This 
is Eleanor ‘ All , how do you do? ' As bald as the 
presentation-cup speech in that old joke — ‘ Well, here's 
the jug ' — ‘ Oh, is that the mug? 9 Rotten for both of 
us ! It would have taken Heaven knows how long to 
wipe out a first impression like that! And, hang it all, 
a girl wants a touch of Romance in her courtship. I 
ought to have thought of that long ago. What I’ve 
been about all this time I don’t know,” thought Elea- 
nor’s jiance . “ I must make up for it now. That girl — 
waiting for me — sending that letter — those rose-leaves 
— She's romantic. Or isn’t she? A coquette? Uncon- 
sciously, perhaps, or — What is she like, besides being 
lovely to look at? How soon shall I begin to find out? 
How soon can I decently see her again ? ” 


CHAPTER IV 


THE FIRST CALL 

In spite of much lying-in-wait about the sands and the 
wide French roads, Ted Urquhart didn’t, for the rest 
of the morning, catch another glimpse of his golden 
Enigma. Disappointed, but nursing an increasing de- 
termination that the afternoon should be less of a blank, 
he went in to the table d'hote dejeuner at the Hotel de 
la Plage. One fish course succeeded another. Then, in 
the midst of a dessert of tiny black grapes (grown on 
the white backyard wall of the Hotel), and of little 
sponge biscuits which it appeared to be the custom of 
the country to dip into one’s glass of very thin red 
wine and then suck, there appeared before Ted Urqu- 
hart the “ Madame ” of the hotel in her tight black 
gown and architectural hair, who smilingly informed 
him that these English demoiselles from the Atelier were 
all in the hall, desirous of speaking to the English 
Monsieur. 

“Ah! — Good,” said Ted Urquhart eagerly. 

He strode out into the bare, shady, stone-paved hall, 
where a knot of girlish figures, in heterogeneous seaside 
“ get-up,” were clustered, like bees on a head of teazle, 
in one corner. A buzzing chorus of talk stopped on 
53 


54 


THE FIRST CALL 


a staccato note as the young man appeared in the 
doorway. For a second he hesitated, glancing from the 
one black coat with furs to the coloured blouses. 

Then one figure, the tallest, dressed in white, sepa- 
rated itself from the others, and cam'e sedately towards 
him. 

“ Oh,” she began demurely, in a voice very different 
from the whispering, giggling voices of the other girls, 
“good-afternoon, Mr. ” 

And she — the girl of this morning ; “ his ” girl ! — 
paused. It was to give him an opportunity to slip in 
the name by which she must thank him. 

Ted Urquhart, realising this well enough, didn’t 
give any. 

“ Not yet ; no, not yet l ” he was saying to himself. 
And he forced himself away from the growing tempta- 
tion to stare. 

He noticed how her hair, the wonderful blonde hair 
that had rippled down far below her waist, and had 
been so hastily shaken back from her face, was well out 
of the way now, — plaited into a rope thicker than that 
which had been let down over the cliff’s edge, wound 
round her head, and hidden away under a very wide- 
brimmed hat of exquisitely-woven white. 

In his quick glance at the girl, Ted Urquhart did not 
overlook that Panama hat. 

For he knew it. 

“ I come on behalf of these young ladies,” the pretty 


THE FIRST CALL 


55 


voice was saying, half-deprecatingly, half-mischievously. 
“ We — they all want to thank you so much for your 
. . . well, I don’t know quite what to call it ! ” 

“ Heroism, Miss, dear 1 ” prompted the voice of the 
funereally-clad Jam-Hand. “Like the Surrey,” she 
added. 

“Well,” went on the girl in charge, “ may we say 
4 heroism ’ — like the Surrey ? ” 

She met the young man’s eyes, and they laughed 
together. 

44 Oh, please don’t say anything of the kind ! ” Ted 
Urquhart implored her, still laughing; his eyes, full of 
well-leashed admiration, again upon the face under the 
Panama hat which he had sent, weeks ago, to Eleanor. 

The girl had trimmed his gift with a silken scarf, 
now faded to a tender browny-pink not unlike the colour 
of those rose-leaves in that letter which had brought 
him home on an impulse, — but he knew that was the 
hat. 

He knew that he had written in the accompanying 
letter a description of how these fine hats were made, 
not of straw, but of the young fronds of spreading 
palm-leaves, and how they are plaited under water to 
keep them flexible, and how the little square piece in 
the crown is the feature of the more elaborate of them. 
All this he knew: he could almost see his own hand- 
writing in that letter. 

But what he did not know was, that Eleanor Urqu- 


56 


THE FIRST CALL 


hart, when she had received that packet at The Court, 
had said, “ Oh, look what a queer sort of garden-hat 
Ted has sent me from South America ! So kind of him, 
but it’s much too large for me — I never wear these im- 
mense shady things. Rosamond, do you care to have 
it?” 

“ Oh, rather, my dear ! Any contributions thankfully 
received for the pauper’s wardrobe ! ” Rosamond Fayre 
had laughed ; “ besides, this is a lovely hat for the 
grounds, and I shall be able to wear it all the time when 
we are by the sea.” 

And that was how it happened that she was wearing 
it now. 

“ Please don’t dream of thanking me — I’m only so 
glad I happened to turn up,” Ted Urquhart was say- 
ing. And then the girl in charge, prompted by another 
murmur from the group of — “ About this afternoon, 
Miss — you know ! — you ask him ! ” went on sedately : 

“ Oh, yes ! and I am deputed to ask you whether you 
can spare time to come this afternoon and have tea 
with us all? We are at the Hostel, that white house 
with the brilliant green shutters and the studio in the 
garden. It’s on the right of the road to Boulogne, at 
the other end of the village from here, if you will 
come ” 

If, indeed! 

“ Thanks most awfully,” said Urquhart promptly, 


THE FIRST CALL 


57 


turning to the group by the door and smiling again as 
he met the unabashed gaze of the Principal Boy. 44 I 
shall be delighted to come ! ” 

He meant it. 

His plan, his excellent plan, was continuing to work 
out even better than he had dreamed. 

First the flying start of this morning’s adventure. 
Now the entree to Eleanor’s hospitality — and under 
such favourable circumstances! Holiday-time; a jolly 
little holiday place without any stiffness or formality 
about it. A foreign village, too; that meant an added 
excuse for compatriots to be very friendly. Except 
for a couple of Americans on their honeymoon at his 
Hotel, there seemed to be only French people and the 
Hostel party in the village. Naturally the only Eng- 
lishman would soon find himself attached to the Hostel 
party — they were genial, sympathetic souls, these 
Cockney girls. And soon, the 44 party ” also would 
split up into the immemorial grouping. They — he and 
she — would grow to be friends — more than friends, as 
quickly here as on board ship or on a desert-island. 
Everything was conspiring to help on the courtship 
that was now about to begin. 

He congratulated himself — — 

Meanwhile, Rosamond Fayre also was thinking: 
44 Well, I suppose this quite pleasant but slightly un- 
conventional young man will now proceed to introduce 
himself by name?” 


58 


THE FIRST CALL 


Not he. 

All he said was, “ How soon — I mean when may I 
come? ” 

“ Tea is at five,” he was told. “ Good-bye until then 
— er ” 

Again a little pause into which Miss Fayre not un- 
warrantably imagined that he might have slipped his 
name. 

Ted Urquhart merely echoed courteously, “ Until 
then!” 

The bevy of English girls, with a bobbing of small, 
bright hats, a swing of skirts, and a toss of one set of 
black furs, moved away from the Hotel in a cloud of 
white French dust. 

Then a clatter of tongues broke out. 

“ Miss, dear, isn’t he handsome? ” 

“ Tall, isn’t he? ” 

“ Talk about sun-burnt ! ” 

“ Funny kind of belt he’d got on ; sort of cow- 
boy-looking, wasn’t it? Isn’t he like Lewis Waller 


“ Oh, go on, Mabel Beading ! It’s always Lewis 
Waller, with her. Not a bit like an actor, to my mind. 
More like a soldier ! ” 

“ Well, he couldn’t look like anything better,” said 
Miss Fayre, whose motto from childhood had been, 
“ Ah , que j’aime les militaires.” 

“ I wonder what he does for a living? ” 


THE FIRST CALL 59 

44 I wonder how old he is ? Twenty-seven, twenty- 
eight? ” 

44 I wonder,” contributed the Salvation Army Lassie, 
44 if he’s married ? ” 

44 Not him,” declared the Principal Boy definitely. 

“ Now, Pansy, whatever ’s the good of saying that, 
when you don’t know? ” retorted the Blouse-finisher 
rather pettishly. 44 How can you possibly tell, with 
gentlemen? They aren’t like us! They don’t have to 

give the game away with a wedding-ring ” 

44 And a £ Keep-off-the-grass ’ expression,” added the 
Jam-Hand, 44 and a new name! Now, when a young 

girl's still single, she’s ” 

44 Talking of names,” said Pansy, quickly, 44 what’s 
his? Anybody catch it?” 

No; nobody seemed to have caught it. 

44 Miss, dear,” from the Jam-Hand, 44 didn’t he say, 
when he was talking to you ? ” 

44 No,” said Rosamond Fay re ; meditatively, perhaps. 
44 He did not.” 

44 Funny of him,” complained the Typist. 44 You’d 
think it was the first thing he’d mention ! ” 

44 Well, I wonder what it is ? Shouldn’t be surprised 
if it was 4 Captain ’ Something,” said the Blouse-fin- 
isher, 44 he’d got his hair cut that way, and that little 
short military moustache. It’ll be in the book in the 

Hotel, anyway — we could always find out ” 

44 My dear Mabel ! indeed we couldn’t ! ” remonstrated 


60 


THE FIRST CALL 


the vice-Head of the Hostel, aghast. 44 If this — well, 
if he didn’t choose to tell it to us, we couldn’t very well 
go looking it up as if ” 

46 As if we was after him ! ” the Jam-Hand came 
to the rescue. 44 Miss is quite right. What’s in a 
name? ” 

The Blouse-finisher persisted that it was queer, not 
knowing what name you could so much as pass him a 
cup of tea by. 

44 And besides, I do want to know it. What am I to 
call him,” asked the Salvation Lassie simply, 44 in my 
prayers ? ” 

44 Probably he’ll send in his card,” suggested Miss 
Fayre, 44 when he calls this afternoon.” 

Ted Urquhart, needless to say, did nothing of the 
kind. 

Still full of the excellence of his schemes, he arrived 
just before five, at the latticed porch of his unsuspect- 
ing fiancee's Hostel. 

About the base of that porch were planted clumps of 
ribbon-grass and tuffets of golden-feather and straggles 
of canary-creeper; and the lattice was gay with the 
monthly roses that grew from a big plaster vase placed 
at one side of the entrance. The vase was held up by 
three laughing Cupids, which had been modelled by the 
artist who had owned the house. Miss Urquhart, when 
she transformed it into her Hostel, would have had 


THE FIRST CALL 


61 


“ those not very appropriate little statuettes ” removed. 
But Rosamond, fearing that the flowers might not bear 
transplanting, had pleaded that the little, unabashed 
Loves should stay as they were. 

Urquhart’s ring at the bell was answered by the old 
mahogany-faced, snowy-capped Frenchwoman who 
cooked and cleaned and did the work of three English 
servants about the place. 

But before she could request Monsieur to enter, the 
slight figure of Annie, the Salvation Lassie, slipped, 
greatly daring, before her. 

Annie also had a scheme respecting names. 

“ Good-afternoon, Sir. I’m parlour-maid t-o-day,” 
she informed the tall visitor with a little giggle of 
nervousness ; “ so — what name , Sir? 99 

Mr. Ted Urquhart was not to be caught out thus. 
What? Held up at the door? Requested to stand and 
deliver? 

He smiled down at the ingenuous little highway- 
woman. 

“ You don’t remember me? ” he said. “ I am ex- 
pected, I think.” 

Then he let her lead the way into what had been the 
artist’s studio, now transformed by Eleanor into the 
Girls’ Refectory. 

The place was long and cool and coloured like a blade 
of the ribbon-grass outside. Green and white case- 
ment-cloth curtained the tall windows, the floor was 


62 


THE FIRST CALL 


carpeted with green straw matting, the white distem- 
pered walls were bare save for a framed copy of the 
Hostel Rules and an Arundel print of S. Ursula with 
her Eleven Thousand Virgins. (Rosamond considered 
that the small austere face of the S. Ursula was not 
unlike that of Eleanor herself, and she sometimes 
amused herself privately by seeking for likenesses in 
the Eleven Thousand, to the factory-hands or music- 
hall supers under Miss Urquhart’s care.) A large 
green Brittany crock full of white Bride-lilies with 
streamers of ribbon-grass stood in the centre of the 
long table now laid for tea. At the head of it stood that 
supple girl in white, with the big Panama hat hiding her 
glorious hair. 

“ So this is to be our first meal together,” thought 
the visitor. “ Well, with luck ! it won’t be long before 
I shall contrive to get her to come out to tea with me, 
somewhere ; away f rom all these rather alarming young 
women. Ah, Eleanor ! Helen — Nell — Yes, that’s your 
name — my name for you. Nell, you little think that 
I’m the person you’ll have to be pouring out tea for 
every day, presently. Presently you will be sitting at 
a table for two, perhaps calling me by some name of 
your own, and ” 

“ Will you come and sit here,” suggested his uncon- 
scious hostess, thinking “ if he prefers ‘ you ’ to any 
other form of address for the present, so be it ! ” 

And he sat down at her right hand, between her and 


THE FIRST CALL 


the Principal Boy, who immediately took most of the 
burden of entertaining the guest upon her own plump 
shoulders. And she certainly broke the ice of a situa- 
tion where a young, well-bred, and good-looking 
(but curiously nameless) man, the only representative 
of his sex, was being mutely worshipped as a hero by 
a bevy of rather self-conscious girls. 

“ I'll look after him,” Pansy chattered, heaping 
Urquhart’s plate, putting the sugar into his cup of tea 
with her own fingers, all but guiding the cup to his 
lips. “ Oh, doesn’t it begin to feel more sort of natural 
with a man about the house again, instead of the ever- 
lastin’ hen-party? Pass those little cakes along, 
Mabel; they’re sort of tipsyfied. Babies-in-rum they 
called ’em, but I daresay their bark’s worse than their 
bite. Same as mine. He’ll like those. . . . Not at all ! 
You never find me backward in coming forward when 
there’s boys — er — a gentleman to look after. ... I 
don’t,” she concluded pointedly, “ know what else to 
call him ? ” 

Ted Urquhart chose to take this question as a mere 
statement of fact. He helped himself to a baba-aiir 
rhum i smiled at his neighbour, and asked her, pleas- 
antly, if she felt quite recovered after her little fright 
of this morning. 

“ 4 Little fright ’? ” echoed Pansy, dramatically. 
“ Oh, girls ! Oh, Miss, dear ! If you’d only known my 
feelings-not-to-mention-my-sensations, when me and 


64 


THE FIRST CALL 


young Annie was hanging there on that cliff like the two 
Balancinis in that Trapeze Act ! 4 What had we found 
wrong with the ground,’ eh? Oh ! Doesn’t it show you 
what’s the fruits of getting up early because it’s such 
a lovely morning? Never again! 4 Such a thing as 
early risin’ I — Don’t — See ! ’ ” she sang. 44 Getting up? 
Well ! Just as I was thinking the ’bus-conductor would 

be passing some rude remark about me ankles ” 

The Typist blushed; the Blouse-finisher murmured 
something about not the slightest use taking any notice 
— and the Pantomime Boy, devouring criss-cross-pat- 
terned French cream-cakes, babbled on : 

44 Just as I was wondering who’d break the news to 
Mother, up comes Lieutenant Daring the Cliff climber, 

that is to say Mister ” 

She broke off abruptly. There was a pause; the 
longest yet. Surely, thought Rosamond Fayre behind 
the teapot, surely this nameless knight-errant would 
proclaim his title now? No. The indefatigable Pansy 
was forced to go on. 

44 Mister — Who? Myster — ee, I suppose. I believe 
he’s Royalty, travelling incog. — Alphonso ! Lobengula ! 
Oh, fancy having me life saved by a Prince ! Look well 
on the bills, won’t it? Better than having me jewels 
pinched! Oh, when he was grabbing on to that rope 
with one hand and begging me to throw my arms round 
him, I said, 4 Can a duck swim ? ’ ” 

At this revised version of what had happened on the 


THE FIRST CALL 65 

cliff -ledge Ted Urquhart put back his brown head and 
laughed infectiously. 

Rosamond joined in with the other girls ; she laughed, 
but she was feeling thankful that Eleanor, safe in Paris, 
did not behold her theatrical protegee in her present 
mood. Pansy, who had been budding out of the Hostel 
etiquette all the week, seemed about, to burst into full 
bloom this afternoon. 

It was at the second addition of hot water to the 
teapot that Pansy protested that all she wanted to 
make her perfectly happy again in this God-forsaken 
spot, where they seemed to make their tobacco out o’ 
those bits of dry black seaweed that blew about the 
beach, was a decent cigarette! 

Smoking, in the Hostel, was strictly against rules, 
but ignorant of this regulation of his betrothed’s, Ted 
Urquhart, with some relief that the nam e-motif ap- 
peared to be dying out of the conversation, drew out 
his case — a thing of finely plaited straw something like 
that of the Panama hat — and passed it, with a quick 
glance of inquiry, to his hostess. 

“ I don’t smoke, thanks,” said Rosamond. Then, 
firmly, “ Nobody smokes.” 

A mutinous pout from Pansy. “ Miss, dear, couldn’t 
you look the other way? Anyhow ” 

With the word she took the cigarette-case and turned 
it upside down beside her plate. A dozen or so of 
“ Egyptians ” rolled out on to the table-cloth. 


66 


THE FIRST CALL 


44 Ow ! Is that all you keep in it? Sold again ! ” dis- 
appointedly from the Principal Boy. 44 No cards , by 
request! All right. Is there a spot more tea in the 
pot, Miss, dear, for his Royal Highness Prince 
Mumm? ” 

Here Urquhart began to realise that the joke of a 
withheld name was wearing a trifle thin. Why couldn’t 
this rattle of a girl drop it now? It was beginning to 
make him almost embarrassed before his hostess, it 
would mean more awkwardness than he intended, when 
he came, say, in a couple of days or so, to announcing 
himself by name. He had thought one could slide more 
easily than that over the situation. ... It was the 
fault of these girls ! She — Nell — hadn’t shown any 
curiosity. But all her charges — the little thing who’d 
opened the door, the girl in glasses, the red-haired, and 
the coster-y looking ones; they were asking now, with 
all their eyes, what that impertinent theatrical minx 
presently put into so many words. 

44 Haven’t you got a name, Mr. Man ? ” 

44 Come, Pansy, Pansy! " from the hostess. 

44 Well, there you are, you see \ He's allowed to hear 
mine'' complained the Principal Boy, loudly. 44 He 
knows I’m Pansy ” 

44 Yes; but Miss Pansy What?” fenced young Urqu- 
hart. 44 1 haven’t been allowed to hear your surname, 
after all.” 

44 Want to hear it? ” retorted the girl petulantly. 


THE FIRST CALL 67 

“ Not,” said the young man quickly, “ if you don’t 
want to tell it to me.” 

“ Ah, that’s meant for a nasty one, but our family 
don’t take hints. I don’t mind telling you,” the Prin- 
cipal Boy announced. She finished her cup of tea, 
glanced quickly at the disposal of the tea-leaves at the 
bottom, muttered to herself, “ A short journey across 
the sea, a quarrel, the wedding of a friend and then 
vouchsafed, defiantly, “ My name is Hawkins.” 

“ Oh, hark at her! ” burst hoarsely from the Jam- 
Hand. “ Oh, Pansy, you’re worse than awful! 
Where d’you think you’ll go to? Hawkins ! Oh ! ” (An 
explosive giggle.) “ Whatever next? Miss Hawkins ! ” 

“ It’s not her name at all,” explained the Blouse- 
finisher, bridling, and the Typist added, 

“ Her name is Miss Vansittart.” 

“ Yes,” from the Jam-Hand. “ And that's only her 
stage-name ! ” 

The Lassie ventured apologetically, “ Her reel name 
is very pretty, I think; Pansy Price.” 

“ Oh, then, you’ve got altogether too many names, 
you know. I couldn’t compete with you,” said Ted 
Urquhart, smiling at the handsome rebellious face of the 
girl beside him, and determined, as Rosamond Fayre 
realised, to keep this skirmish in the enemy’s own coun- 
try. “ Besides,” he said, “ a lady’s name isn’t the same 
as a man’s — — ” 

“ How d’you mean, Mr. — Er ? ” 


68 


THE FIRST CALL 


“ I mean that you’ll all change yours very shortly, I 
expect. I shall stick to mine — whatever it is.” 

“ Evident ! ” said the flushed Pansy. “ But — 
straight now ” — she dropped her voice to an insinuating 
aside — “ What is it?” 

“ Don’t tell her ! ” It was his hostess herself who 
intervened, turning, half-annoyed, half-smiling, to the 
guest. “No; don’t tell her now. Leave it at that. 
They’ve been very rude to tease you about it. Don’t 
tell — anybody your name.” 

“ You see? I am forbidden to tell you ! ” took up the 
anonymous knight, with a little nod. “ I’m sorry, but 
it’s ” 

“Your score. Chalk it up and I’ll be round with 
the money in the morning, Mr. Nought-nought-double- 
O-Dot,” retorted the Principal Boy quite good- 
naturedly. “ Change the subject — seems to be the only 
change a girl can get out of you! ” Then she began to 
rattle on again, this time about that bouquet of flowers 
on the table. 

“ Smell a treat, don’t they? Whatever’s that stripey 
stuff you’ve stuck in with them, Annie? ” 

“ That’s ribbon-grass,” the Lassie timidly showed 
off her knowledge from the other side of the table. “ At 
home they used to call it 6 Match-Me * and play a game 
with it — seeing who could get two blades striped just 
alike ” 

“ Oh, yes, we know those games! — If it isn’t Match- 


THE FIRST CALL 


69 


Me it’s Shy Widow (I don’t think!) or Postman’s 
Knock,” from Pansy. 44 Always end the same way ! 
Always finish in your finding yourself let in for a kiss 
to the wrong young man ! ” 

And she concluded audaciously to the only young man 
present, 44 Is this where we start playing it now? ” 

44 Isn’t this where we all go down to the shore ? ” 
parried Urquhart, smiling pleasantly at her, 44 and see 
if there’s any phosphorescence on the waves this fine 
evening? ” 

His quickness was rewarded by a quicker glance of 
half-amused gratitude from the blue eyes of the girl at 
the head of the now rifled tea-table — and then, with a 
pushing aside of chairs, and a babble of — 44 while I 
get my new ta-ta on ” — 44 Miss, dear, can I come out 
as I am?” — 44 is it cowld? ” — 44 no, you can’t have my 
furs! Leave off!” the girls disappeared out of the 
Refectory, where, in spite of wide-thrown windows, the 
air seemed close and still vibrating with clatter, to the 
upper rooms of the Hostel. 

Ted Urquhart was left to wait for them in the cool 
garden outside, where the round-limbed plaster Loves 
laughed under their burden of roses, to smoke his de- 
ferred cigarette and to revise his impressions of the 
girl who would soon, he found, be settling down very 
naturally and rapidly to her appropriate place in her 
fiance's heart. 

44 Mischievous, though. Just brimful of mischief,” 


70 


THE FIRST CALL 


he decided. “ Every bit as much so as the other hussy ! 
Only hers — Nell’s — isn’t allowed to bubble over. It’s 
all tucked away — takes cover under that hat, I sup- 
pose. Watch that mouth of hers when the girls she’s 
shepherding say something that she’s simply got to 
appear shocked at ” 

He gave a short laugh as he turned up the path again 
and flicked a bit of ash off on to the broken shell that 
served for gravel. “ Mischief ! It was all part of it — 
her writing to me, long ago, that she hadn’t a photo- 
graph, didn’t bother to have herself taken, as she always 
came out so badly. Badly? She was hoarding up her 
looks, deliberately. Meant to spring a mine upon me, 
when I did come home, with her beauty and — and her- 
self!” 

He glanced, as he walked past, at the striped cascade 
of Match-Me grass beside the porch. 

“And her little prunes-and-primsy letters! Jove! 
The first one of all — 4 My dear Ted — Father and I both 
think that it will be the best thing for me to accept your 
kind offer ’ (of marriage, forsooth), and then the 
others, the seedsman’s catalogue and the list of fixtures 
at The Court, and the — she must have been laughing to 
herself as she wrote that letter! Now, I wonder what 
on earth sort of a young-man-not-in-a-hurry she 
thought she was writing to? I wonder what she thinks 
— whether she thinks anything at all yet, that is, of 


THE FIRST CALL 


71 


Rosamond Fay re was at that moment in her bedroom, 
changing her house-slippers (always to be worn indoors 
at the Hostel, Rule 8) for her white canvas beach-shoes, 
and thinking quite busily about the guest of the after- 
noon. 

And her first impression of him was, frankly, that she 
liked him very much indeed. Yes. For a number of 
reasons she considered him (in the bald, but compre- 
hensive summing-up of girlhood) “nice.” 

To begin with, of course, his looks. His build and 
make, his alert movements, his graceful height, the 
breadth of his flat shoulders and the way his rather 
small head was set upon them — these things pleased 
Rosamond’s eyes, and through them, her sense of what 
a man should be as well as look. He was active and fit 
and hard as nails. Now he looked the sort of young 
man, she thought, to rush up and down the Andes, 
making no more of the castings upon his shoulder than 
a porter carting a kit-bag upstairs, like that weird sort 
of a fiance of Eleanor’s — to whom, by the way, another 
letter would have to be sent off in a couple of days. 
Only, keen as he seemed over his engineering and his 
camp-life, Eleanor’s fiance was obviously a laggard in 
love. This young man, Rosamond decided, would not 
be that. She liked the quick grey glance of his impa- 
tient eyes — patience in a man being one of the quite 
numerous virtues which Woman respects and loathes. 
She liked the “ Service crop ” of his brown hair and the 


72 


THE FIRST CALL 


tan of his face and the short moustache that was 
scarcely darker than that tan, and that hid nothing of 
the firm line of his lips. Decidedly good to look at. 
Such a nice voice, too, thought Rosamond, tying the 
white strings of her shoe. 

The right sort of clothes, too. As old as the hills, 
but built. He’d changed the blue blazer and waist-belt 
and white flannel bags of this morning for grey tweed 
things with an unstiffened white collar fastened by a 
plain gold safety-pin under a tie of deep-blue knitted 
silk. 

“ I wonder if . . . anybody . . . knitted it? ” she 
broke off. 

And she liked the way he wore the clothes, also that 
leather strap about his wrist, and the very old silk 
handkerchief that had faded to the brown of an autumn 
leaf, and — several more of the little details, the omission 
or achievement of which young women were noticing at 
the time that young men fondly dreamt that they — the 
girls — were being profoundly interested in what hap- 
pened at the seventh hole, or in Ulster ; what a man like 
Lloyd George was actually driving at, or what had been 
the policy of their particular firm, up to now — 

If the youth had but known ! 

It doesn’t matter now, of course, since there is now 
always the one topic, the War, for maid and man. . . . 

This young man, besides being agreeable to look at 
and to listen to, possessed that Something to which girls 


THE FIRST CALL 


73 


who are sisters pay tribute. (In a two-edged remark 
which sometimes also means that they, personally, find 
a young man hopelessly uninspiring!) 

“ The boys would like him.” 

Rosamond Fay re, remembering the brother dead in 
his early twenties, thought, 44 Yes. My dear old boy 
would have liked him ! ” 

How nice he — the visitor — had been at tea! Some 
young men might have 44 taken advantage ” in some 
tiny, imperceptible way of Pansy, who was rather ap- 
palling when she let her high spirits run away with 
her like that. Rosamond was almost as grateful to 
him for his behaviour this afternoon as for that of 
this morning. 

How ripping and 44 on the spot ” and dependable 
he’d been this morning! 

Rosamond found that she utterly approved of every- 
thing she’d noticed, so far, about — his name? What 
about that name of his? M — m, well! 

Well, he’d missed his opportunity of getting it in 
at once, of course. Afterwards, of course he wasn’t 
going to give away the name at which such a dead set 
had been made by the girls ! Serve them right that he’d 
faced round and begun to tease them ! 

Rosamond was glad she’d interrupted, when he was 
just going to give in. She was glad she’d said 44 Don't 
tell anybody your name ! ” 

44 Because he’ll know,” she reflected, as she closed her 


74 


THE FIRST CALL 


bedroom door, and ran downstairs to join the group in 
the porch, “ he’ll know that when I said 4 anybody ’ I 
meant 4 anybody except me.’ He’ll have to tell me when 
we get down to the shore, of course ! ” 


CHAPTER V 


THE NEW MOON 

Grouped in the hostel porch, the other girls were chaf- 
fing, in whispers, the Principal Boy. 

“ Well, you had all the luck! Not a word or a look 
for any of us! ” they complained. “You were the one, 
Pansy ! ” 

“Me? Nit,” declared Pansy, winking in a fashion 
for which she had been more than once gently taken to 
task by Miss Eleanor Urquhart. It was a wink epito- 
mising the experience of five crowded years upon the 
boards. “ Me indeed ! ” 

“ Now, just hark at you again ! ” protested the 
Jam-Hand, huskily. “ You weren’t half getting 
off with your Lieutenant Daring the Cliff-climber, 
oh, no ! ” 

“ Getting off? Scored off, you mean,” scoffed Pansy. 
“ Played off, more like ! ” 

“ Played off? ” queried the Typist, hopefully. 
“ Played off against who? ” 

“ Oh, you get the call-boy to wake you up when it’s 
time for you to come on ! ” laughed the Principal Boy, 
under her breath. “ D’you mean to say you weren’t on 
to that inside of half-a-minute at the Hotel this after- 
75 


76 


THE NEW MOON 


noon? Who d’you s’pose he's here for? Don’t strain 
yourselves guessing. I’ll show you presently.” 

What she showed them presently (when, taking the 
slim Annie by one arm and Mabel Beading by the other, 
she drove the Jam-Hand and the Typist, also arm-in- 
arm ahead of them, along the stretch of beach below the 
sandhills) was Miss Rosamond Fayre, with the young 
man who had been their guest of the afternoon, walking 
along (but not arm-in-arm) some distance behind. 

Perhaps they walked more slowly than they knew. 
And for perhaps the sixth time since their first breath- 
less encounter of the morning that now seemed such 
ages away, now in the soft gathering dusk above the 
sands that had been so dazzlingly sunny, Rosamond 
found herself thinking, “ Now! ” 

She waited for him to speak. 

He spoke. He said, 64 Don’t you think it’s a bit too 
cold for it ? ” 

“Cold,” repeated Rosamond, “too cold for what?” 

“ Why, for the phosphorescence,” he explained, 
turning his eyes to the water’s edge where the waves 
came tumbling in, nearer and nearer to the last tide- 
mark. Now one ran up in advance, filling with water 
the hollowed tracks left by the girls ahead ; then swirled 
back, leaving a stretch of smooth brown mirror in which 
gleamed the reflections of a pearl and apricot sky, a 
towering sunset cloud, the point of light from a single 
star. “ I don’t think we shall see any to-night.” 


THE NEW MOON 


77 


“ There was some a night or two ago.” 

“ Ah, yes,” said Urquhart. “ But I only came over 
last night.” 

This, thought Rosamond, was the opening. But he 
didn’t go on. Very well ! To return, while he sought for 
another opening, to the subject of the phosphorescence. 

44 It looked like summer-lightning on the waves,” she 
told him. 44 All pale green — wonderful ” 

“Ah, but you don’t really get enough of it just in 
the shallow waters here, and in these cool climates. The 
French coast in August is no place for the real thing,” 
returned the young man. 44 Right out at sea — in the 
Tropics at night — that’s when it’s 4 wonderful.’ The 
wake of a ship, where it looks as if she’d turned up 
a furrow of silver fire as the plough turns up earth. 
That’s where you ought to see it from,” he told her, 
thinking, 44 and so you shall, and soon ! Wait until 
I carry you off on a honeymoon-cruise round the world, 
Nell ! What would you say to that? ” 

The girl whom his increasingly venturesome thoughts 
were addressing as 44 Nell ” said, composedly, 44 Yes, it 
must be rather delightful to be able to travel, like that.” 

44 It would be, you darling,” responded Mr. Ted Urqu- 
hart promptly — but not aloud. So that she still waited 
for him to say something. 

His next remark was more or less an excuse to check 
their advance for a moment, while the others — their 
chattering young voices raised from time to time in 

s' 


78 


THE NEW MOON 


snatches of musical comedy song — swung on further 
ahead. Young Urquhart, standing still on the sand, 
pointed out to the apricot-shading-to-pearl sweep of 
sky above the tumbling waves and said, 44 Hullo ! The 
new moon.” 

44 Oh, yes,” said Rosamond politely, following his 
glance at the curve of thin silver over the rim of an 
indigo cloud. 44 So it is.” 

44 Doesn’t that mean that one ought to curtsey, or 
bow seven times, or touch gold, or something? ” asked 
Ted Urquhart. And in spite of his care to keep his 
voice as well under control as his eyes, a shade of dif- 
ference crept into his tone with the words, 44 Isn’t one 
supposed to get a new moon wish ? ” 

A shade of difference of another sort was to be de- 
tected in the tone of Miss Fay re’s 44 1 believe there is 
some old superstition of the kind. It begins to grow 
dark quite soon now, doesn’t it ! ” 

44 Ah, putting me in what you consider my place, 
Nell? ” This was her companion’s mental comment. 
His spoken one was, 44 Yes, and yet it seems only a few 
days since we were at the longest day.” 

To-day had seemed sufficiently long and crowded to 
Rosamond Fayre. Yet this young man didn’t appear 
to find time in it to remember the most rudimentary 
beginnings of his manners. After all her 44 of courses ” 
he was not seizing this opportunity to let her know his 
name ! Here he was strolling by the lacey hem of the 


THE NEW MOON 


79 


waves on the sand and at her side, and the most obvi- 
ous thing to say remained unspoken. He merely asked 
if those were the Boulogne harbour-lights that one saw 
down there to the left? 

“ Yes.” (Did he imagine they were the Lights o’ 
London?) 

44 And it’s not so much further along to Wimereux? ” 

44 No,” said Rosamond Eayre. 

Here two white-clad figures that had been walking 
along the sands behind them overtook them, with a 
cheery “ Good-evening ! ” to Urquhart, who lifted his 
straw hat. They were the Americans, the honeymoon 
couple from his hotel, and the little bride gave the 
swiftest glance of sympathetic interest at the other 
couple as they passed. 

44 Why, Lucius, if it isn’t that perfectly lovely girl 
from the Hostel with the nice-looking Englishman from 
the de la Plage that asked you for matches,” she mur- 
mured to her own escort. 44 Now, how thrilling! 
Don’t they just look fine together, with their reflections 
in that wet sand below them and the new moon just over 
their heads; isn’t it a 'picture! May their own moon 
rise soon,” concluded the just married girl, happily, 
44 for it’s easy to see what’s doing there! ” 

She might not have come to this conclusion — cr, 
again, she might — if she had overheard the dialogue at 
that moment halting along between this likely-looking 
couple. 


80 


THE NEW MOON 


44 1 believe there are good links at Wimereux,” Ted 
Urquhart said. 44 Do you play golf? ” 

44 No,” said Rosamond Fayre. 

44 Do you go into Boulogne much? ” 

44 No,” said Rosamond. 

44 1 expect you find quite enough to do in this place ? ” 

44 Yes,” said Rosamond. 

44 Baggage ! I recognise the style of your letters in 
all this. There’s an end coming to this kind of thing 
though, the very first time I manage to get you to 
myself — really to myself — for an afternoon,” said 
Urquhart — but not aloud. Aloud he said, 44 Ripping 
places for picnics, I should think, all about here.” 

44 Yes, I should think so,” agreed Rosamond politely. 
44 1 think we ought — as our old lady likes getting our 
supper over early — I think we ought to be going in 
now.” 

It seemed to him that he was allowed only another 
second of walking beside her, stealing sideway glances 
at her through the silver-blue gloaming, before she had 
recalled and collected her chattering flock — before they 
were again gathered about the entrance to the Hostel, 
gleaming ghostly-white in the dusk. The light through 
the Refectory windows pointed a bright, mocking 
finger across the shrubs, across the shelly path to the 
provoked and eager and impatient face of that young 
man outside the gate of twisted iron-work, holding his 
hat with his walking-stick in his left hand. 


THE NEW MOON 


81 


Rosamond had only bowed as she said (still as 
politely) 44 Good-evening ! ” 

44 Good-night,” said Ted Urquhart shortly. 

But whatever else he had chosen to say as he turned 
away, he could scarcely have made Rosamond Fayre 
feel very much angrier with him, than she was already 
feeling at that moment. 

Rude young man! 

Horribly rude! 

What earthly reason could he have for keeping his 
absurd name (whatever it was) to himself? It made 
her feel so ridiculous ! 

For instance, when she told Eleanor — 'as she was, of 
course, bound to tell Eleanor — about that escapade of 
Annie’s and Pansy’s on the cliff, and how they owed 
their foolhardy necks to a young Englishman 
who had — et cetera, what could she reply to Eleanor’s 
natural first question of 44 Who was he? ” 

44 Oh, he didn’t tell us who he was. He came to tea 
with us afterwards, and he went for a walk on the shore 

with us, but he didn’t give any name ” 44 Really? ” 

Rosamond could imagine the little line between Elea- 
nor’s brows at this. 44 How very odd ! ” 

Precisely ! 

Well, she (Rosamond) couldn’t help it. It had 
nothing more to do with her. The young man with the 
deep cleft in his firm chin had rescued two of the girls ; 
he’d been thanked, he had been asked to tea and had 


THE NEW MOON 


been entertained (by Pansy). Everybody had said 
“ Good-bye ” to him quite nicely just now, he’d gone, 
and there was no reason why Rosamond should think 
any more about him. 

Thinking of him as she presided over the girls’ 
supper of cocoa and charcuterie and bread and butter 
cut from yard-long French loaves, Rosamond admitted 
to herself that the young man with those very white 
teeth had at least one saving grace. He hadn’t tried 
to worm himself into their society under an assumed 
name ! Rosamond had heard of people on holidays who 
had tried to do this. Really horrid young men, of 
course. Not the sort of young man that one could 
feel at home with in every other sort of way, as, to do 
him justice, one might have done with — but he’d gone. 
Probably he was off to Wimereux to play golf on those 
links to-morrow. Why waste another thought on him? 

Another thing about that young man with the frank 
and laughing eyes, thought Rosamond after supper, 
when the Refectory table had been cleared and the girls 
had gathered round the piano to sing to the accompani- 
ments that Miss Fayre could play without notes, he had 
seemed to wish to be friendly and sociable in every other 
way. He might — if he’d only been sensible — have had 
quite a jolly time, picnicing and going for excursions 
with them all; with the girls, with Eleanor when she 
returned in four days’ time, and with herself. He’d 


THE NEW MOON 


only himself to thank that he wasn’t going to see any- 
thing more of the English contingent while he was here, 
and that they weren’t thinking of inviting him again — 
or thinking of him anyhow ! 

The thought with which Rosamond Eayre amused 
herself as she unwound the golden rope of her hair that 
night and brushed it into a shining shawl over her 
nightgown was “ supposing the reason was that his 
name was so hideous or so funny that he didn’t like me 
— us to know it ! ” 

She laughed and mentally ran over all the ugly or 
ludicrously sounding surnames that she had ever heard. 

“ Hogg . . . Dolittle . . . Mr. Prate . . . Carrotts 
. . . Gotobed . . . Tombs ! And there was that new 
butler at The Court whose name Mr. Urquhart simply 
had to change to Beeton. His real one was 4 Beetles .’ 
Heavens ! Fancy marrying a man called Mr. Beetles. 
Still, it wasn’t his fault (the butler’s, I mean). It was 
only his affliction. The type of mind that would make 
fun of a man because of his surname,” concluded Rosa- 
mond Fayre, dividing the gold on either side of her 
face, “ is the type that would laugh at a little child in 
irons. And as I shall never know what his is, why 
worry about it any more? ” 

Going back to the subject as she nestled her pretty 
head down into the pillow with Eleanor’s clear marking 


84 


THE NEW MOON 


of « URQUHART. HOSTEL. 1914,” it struck Rosa- 
mond that it was rather a pity that there was to be no 
further opportunity for snubbing that nameless young 
man. Hadn’t he rather put on “ side ” here and there? 
Hadn’t he been just a tiny bit “superior”? About 
that phosphorescence, for instance? “In the Tropics 
at night . . . that’s where it’s so wonderful ! ” As 
much as telling her, Rosamond Fayre, that nothing 
she'd ever seen could compare with a man’s wider ex- 
perience. She was glad she’d been so very distant about 
the New Moon. 

That moon had set hours ago ; only starlight 
watched the flat Normandy lands, the leafy garden out- 
side her window. Every evening now the moon would 
grow, though. How glorious when it was full moon 
over the sea here ! “ Silver fire ” of phosphorescence 

in the tropic seas through which the good ship ploughed 
her way — Pooh ! 

Thinking of him and — — 

But here Rosamond Fayre fell off to sleep. 


CHAPTER VI 


PLAN— AND SUPER-PLAN 

Upon a morning that was bright as a diamond, bracing 
as a sea-dip, blue-and-white as Canterbury bells in the 
Hotel garden, Mr. Ted Urquhart told himself again 
that this golden weather was sent by a kind and match- 
making Providence for the special purpose of speeding 
his courtship. 

To-day should not be wasted, as he had had to waste, 
through no wish of his own, yesterday and the day 
before. 

For he had seen nothing further of “ that perfectly 
lovely girl from the Hostel ” since the evening when she 
had not even vouchsafed him a handshake for good-night. 
The day after he had caught just a glimpse of the whole 
party packed into some French vehicle that passed for 
a wagonette, leaving a wake of shrieks and chatter and 
laughter along the white road to Boulogne. In Bou- 
logne itself he hadn’t managed to run across them for 
all his search in patisseries and cinemas and the 
galeries where you buy — or did buy in the dim ages 
before the War — scent and soap and silk stockings. 
The following day all he had seen of the party had 
been another fleeting glimpse, this time of a vision of 
85 


86 


PLAN— AND SUPER-PLAN 


hats — a black, feathery cart-wheel, a small petunia- 
coloured helmet of satin, and a shady Panama — below 
sandhills. A few yards further on were a white straw 
“ shape ” with a gaily flowered band, a Saxe-blue linen 
sun-hood, and a Salvation bonnet with its lettered rib- 
bon. All those other young women, confound them ! 
She was forever surrounded by them ! Yet another 
hat! a chic, Watteau shepherdess affair, massed with 
blush roses — close to another, a man’s straw hat. A 
man's? Who the dickens — Ah ! Urquhart had felt dis- 
tinctly relieved when he realised that the two last hats 
also belonged to people he’d met; to the honeymooning 
Americans from his Hotel. They’d been picnicing with 
the Hostel party. Urquhart couldn’t very well join 
them. ... It would have looked too much like forcing 
himself upon those girls ! Yes. The young honeymoon 
couple — strangers to her — w r ere allowed to make them- 
selves at home in that sheltered corner below the sand- 
hills with her. And he — who’d every right and reason 
to be at her side, he, her lawful fiance , so to speak, he 
couldn’t claim a look-in ! 

A pretty Lenten sort of engagement his had been so 
far! 

But never mind. To-day he meant to take the bull 
by the horns. Pie meant to walk straight up to the 
Hostel, and, no matter who opened the door to him, 
demand to see Miss Eleanor Urquhart for one moment 
alone. 


PLAN — AND SUPER-PLAN 


87 


He wouldn’t go until he’d achieved that moment. 

And then — then he’d plunge for it without any more 
of this infernal beating about the bush! He would 
hold out his hand and look her straight in the face, that 
sedately-provoking, mischievously proper, flower of a 
face of hers. He’d say, “ How do you do, Eleanor? ” 
(“Nell” could be kept for later on.) He’d say, “I 
ought to have told you before. I’m Ted. Now don’t 
pretend you can’t imagine who that is ” (she’d be cer- 
tain to make the attempt), “and don’t ask ‘ what 
Ted?’” (This would be just like her.) “You know 
perfectly well . — Your Ted.” 

Then, no doubt, his fiancee-in-spite-of-herself would 
proceed to make his life a burden by her demure gibes 
at his behaviour of two days ago. She would — well, 
never mind. The ice would be broken. There’d be an 
end of that insolently formal small-talk about the 
longest day and the weather. He would know where 
he was — that is, he amended, as he grasped his walking- 
stick as if it were the hilt of a fencing-foil, she would 
know who he was ; and here he felt, as one turns to a 
friend, for his tobacco. 

Hereupon he realised a diurnal tragedy of Man’s life ; 
the ever-recurring catastrophe in two words — “ No 
matches ! ” He’d long come to the end of the one box 
of English ones that is allowed to the traveller by an 
Argus-eyed Customs-house System — to the end, also, of 
the other six that he’d managed to smuggle over, and he 


88 


PLAN— AND SUPER-PLAN 


hadn’t brought with him out of the Hotel a box of those 
beastly spluttering foreign things. . . . 

This was why he turned into the little low-roofed, 
double-doored Debit Tabac. And here he found another 
customer, twirling the revolving stand of picture post- 
cards under the hanging clusters of string-soled shoes, 
and endeavouring to make the French youth in charge 
understand by shouts and gestures her resonant Cock- 
ney English. She wore her gaudy petunia-pink coat 
and the small helmet hat that was itself rather like 
something of a picture postcard. For under the hat 
there beamed a welcome, the shrewd and powdered face 
of that pride of pantomime, Pansy. 

44 Hullo, N. or M.,” she said, spinning round on her 
heel. 44 Quite a stranger ! ” 

44 Hullo ! ” said Urquhart. 44 Good-morning.” 

“ Nothing wrong with the morning,” admitted Pansy. 
44 Now, young man — you other one, I mean, in French! 
I’ll have this of The Plage, and these two of the land- 
ing-stage,” waving the cards in his face, 44 and you 
might get me out this one — No, no ! Not that. Want 
to get me into trouble with my pal the English Post- 
master-General? This other one! Here! This with 
the forget-me-nots and the heart, and the hand, writing. 
That’s it — Are you coming along?” she added to Urqu- 
hart, when the cards, enclosed in a flimsy grey envelope, 
were handed td her by the young Frenchman with the 
invariably courteous bow, which she acknowledged by 


PLAN— AND SUPER-PLAN 89 

carrying her hand to her satin casque in a military 
salute. 44 Coming along with me? ” 

44 Er — yes,” said Ted Urquhart. 44 1 think I am 
walking up a bit of the way with you.” 

The Principal Boy, swinging along at his side up the 
cobbled, coffee- scented street, turned suddenly upon 
him and remarked, 44 No luck, had you? ” 

44 1 beg your pardon ? ” 

44 Ow ! As man to man, now ! ” Pansy mocked him with 
another toss of that hat and that tangerine-tinted hair. 
44 You know what I mean ! Didn’t meet our Miss Any- 
body early on the beach this morning, did you? ” 

Ted Urquhart, surprised and amused, paused a mo- 
ment to debate within himself whether to treat this 
remark as a joke or to pretend that he didn’t know 
what this astute young Cockney was driving at. He 
glanced at her again. No. Not worth while to put up 
pretences against the snap of those brown eyes. Be- 
sides, presently she and the others would know that he 
was, definitely and officially, engaged to be married to 
their Miss Anybody, their young Lady Warden. 

So he said, as frankly as if quite a long conversation 
on the subject had already passed between him and 
the Pantomime Boy, 44 Meet ‘anybody’? No. I 
didn’t.” 

44 Had a good look, I suppose? ” 

He laughed. 

44 Had you? ” 


90 


PLAN— AND SUPER-PLAN 


“ Well, as a matter of fact,” admitted Ted Urquhart, 
still laughing, “ I had.” 

“ Good ! ” said the Principal Boy. “ I do like any- 
one who’ll come straight to the point. Too many 
fellows just won't. To keep to the point, I dessay 
you’re fairly bursting yourself to see her again 
to-day? ” 

“Well?” said Urquhart, defensive, but smiling. 

“ Well, you don’t want all the others nosin’ round 
and gaping and taking in every remark that’s 
passed ” 

“ I do not,” agreed Ted Urquhart fervently, with an- 
other frank glance at the face she turned up. At the 
back of that broad crimson-and-ivory smile he recog- 
nised a real wish to help. . . . Well! Why not make 
use of that invaluable asset to courtship, the feminine 
ally? 

“ Look here, Miss Pansy,” he began. “ If you’d 
really — I’d be jolly grateful — If you’d only ” 

“ Anything, Mr. Never-mention-it ” 

“ If you mean my wretched name,” he said quickly, 
“give me another half-day, will you?” 

“ Why, if that’s part of it ” 

“ It is,” said Ted Urquhart truthfully. “ It is part 
of it.” 

“ Right-0, mate. Then you listen to me,” his new 
ally went on quickly as they came to the end of the 
street where the last cottage was an overturned fishing- 


PLAN — AND SUPER-PLAN 


91 


boat on a patch of common ground. “ This is our 
Leading Lady’s afternoon for writing letters. She’ll 
be in the house from two till five o’clock about. We 
shan’t.” 

“Where shall you be, then?” asked Ted Urquhart, 
falling without further ado into this scheme for his wel- 
fare. “ Which side of the beach? ” 

“ Hardelot,” planned the Pantomime Boy. “ I’ll 
cart young Annie and those other two off there, and 
keep ’em out for tea, even if we have to pull through on 
that black-currant vinegar they bring you with a fancy 
cake. Must have a bit o’ fun sometimes. The coast 
then being clear, Captain Swift decides to march up to 
the Hostel to ask for his handsome silver-mounted walk- 
ing-stick which he was careless enough (ahem!) to leave 
behind him when he called.” 

“ But I’m afraid I wasn’t,” objected Ted Urquhart, 
vexed that he had not remembered this good old rule, 
this simple plan, for himself. “ Afraid I’ve got it 
here <” 

“ Oh, well, if you will have it ! ” flounced the young 
woman who’d addressed him as mate. “ Oh, some peo- 
ple do take a lot of helping! You’d come off pretty 
badly at a stage-door, you would. Here! Oh, give it 
to me ! ” 

And the plump hand of the Principal Boy snatched 
the walking-stick away from him, whisking it inside the 
cherry-coloured coat, where she carried it off as a 


92 


PLAN— AND SUPER-PLAN 


poacher carries a short gun. Ten minutes later that 
silver-mounted walking-stick of yew-tree wood was re- 
posing among the stack of umbrellas, shrimping-nets, 
and gay Japanese parasols in the hat-stand of that 
shaded convent-like hall at the Holiday Hostel ; waiting 
to play the small, but not unimportant part for which 
it had been cast in the drama of an August afternoon. 

Rosamond Fayre, having waved a rather envious 
farewell to the merry party setting off across the downs 
to Hardelot, sat down at the window of the little room 
beside the porch, and turned with a sigh to her corre- 
spondence. The morning’s post had brought from Miss 
Urquhart in Paris a sheet of notes of instructions for 
her clerk. Rosamond, sitting at the bureau, looked 
them over again. 

(1) Write back to the C.O.S. saying I cannot 

entertain their proposal. 

(2) Find out if Nellie Clark, under-bodice hand 

at Shoddy and Frillings, is taking her holiday 
the last week in August or the first in Sep- 
tember. 

(3) Ask Lady M. about clothes for that Jumble 

Sale in October. 

Over the fourth item Rosamond had, as usual, smiled 
a little. 

(4) Write to Mr. T. Urquhart for me. Same ad- 

dress as last time. Tell him what we have 


PLAN— AND SUPER-PLAN 


93 


been doing in France, but that he’d better 
write to me as usual at The Court. I shall 
have to be at The Court off and on, and 
am returning to take Father those MSS. 
after I bring Edith Winter to the Hostel, 
either to-morrow or day after. Shall 
come back to the Hostel again on the 
16th. 

(5) Write for that estimate for re-painting and 
decorating the Canning Town Creche. 

Five letters to write; actually six. For there was 
another letter of which the envelope was scrawled over 
with several addresses, the first one being to the Hotel 
Midas, London. It was in the cash-desk of the Midas 
that Rosamond had been found so providentially by her 
present employer. The Midas people had sent the let- 
ter on to her old lodgings, who had forwarded it on to 
The Court, whence Mr. Beeton, the butler, had sent it 
on to France. And Rosamond had recognised the hand- 
writing inside with a not altogether unaffectionate touch 
of contempt. . . . Still? He still remembered her? 
“ He ” was the lad who had shared College rooms with 
her brother, who had begged her to write to him, who 
had afterwards implored her to marry him. Even if 
he had been five years older than he was, Rosamond 
would still as soon have thought of engaging herself to 
an infant out of one of Eleanor’s creches. He was 
rather a sweet boy, but he was of the type that remains 


94 PLAN— AND SUPER-PLAN 

to the end of Time some woman’s unrewarded and de- 
voted dog. 

He wrote: 

“ My dear Miss Fay re, 

“This is my second letter to you. One was 
sent back to me at Oxford. I heard that you were 
working at the Midas. You ought not to be working. 
I was horribly upset. I went there and they told me 
you had left. Will you please tell me where you are 
and what doing? Mayn’t I come and see you? I 
won’t bother you. I swear I won’t. Please won’t you 
let me come? 

“ With kindest regards, 

“ Ever yours, 

“ Cecil Bray.” 

“ Do please say I may come and how soon.” 

It was a pity, Rosamond thought, that men didn’t 
seem able to strike a happy mean between opening out 
their whole hearts like a pedlar’s wallet on the ground 
before you, like poor dear Cecil, — and adopting the 
attitude of the Male Aloof, too lofty or absorbed, or — 
er — something — to have anything to tell you about 
themselves, like 

Here the bell rang and Rosamond glanced up from 
her bureau, out of the window. 


PLAN — AND SUPER-PLAN 


95 


“ Good gracious, he's come back,” thought Rosamond 
F'ayre, swiftly at the sight of the figure standing on the 
path. 44 And there’s Madame Topp gone to the fair at 
Portel, and I shall have to go to the door — in this 
blouse. It’s always the way. Whenever one tries to 
be truly economical and to wear out one’s old clothes in 
private life, somebody not entirely uninteresting is ab- 
solutely certain to call ! ” And bitterly resenting that 
blouse, she went to the door. 

Upon Ted Urquhart the facts that her blouse was a 
very ancient 44 has been,” with marks of iron-mould 
upon it, and that her skirt had been a friend of that 
blouse’s youth, were entirely lost. He only realised 
that the girl framed in the doorway looked daintier in 
the flesh, than she had done in his dreams of two days ; 
with a deeper rose-colour than he remembered in her 
soft cheeks; and that his heart seemed to take a leap 
forward at the sight of her. 

Rosamond, for her part, frankly admitted to herself 
that she was very glad to see him. She hadn’t really 
snubbed him properly the other evening — and he was 
the sort of uppish young man who really calls for 
snubbing. 

He had called, it seemed, about a walking-stick. 

44 I am always forgetting something,” he told her. 
“ Thank you, so much. Yes. That’s the one, with 
the rather fat knob. Thanks so awfully much ! ” 

44 Not at all,” said Miss Fayre, looking 44 Good-bye.” 


96 


PLAN— AND SUPER-PLAN 


But apparently he had just been struck by an 
afterthought. 

“ Oh, look here ; I say ! I wanted very much to — er 
— to give some sort of a return little party,” he began, 
“ after that tea with you on Tuesday. I — you do have 
tea out-of-doors sometimes, don’t you? Think I caught 
sight of you with some people from my Hotel yester- 
day.” 

A non-committal “Oh, yes?” from Rosamond. 

He went on. 

“ So, if you wouldn’t be too awfully bored. That 
is! Do you think you — and all the others could come 
and have a picnic tea of sorts with me under the rocks 
below le Portel this afternoon? I’ve got a Thermos, 
and sandwiches and things. And as it’s such a ripping 
day, I — I do hope that you won’t refuse me ” 

“ I am afraid — What a pity ! ” said Rosamond Fayre 
sedately. “ All the girls are out. They went twenty 
minutes ago. They are having tea out.” 

“ I say, how unfortunate ! ” he said. “ Have they 
gone into Boulogne again?” 

“ Boulogne — without me — is out of bounds,” Rosa- 
mond told him. “ So they’ve gone to see what sort of 
‘ pictures ’ there are at Hardelot.” She gave him the 
conventional smile that is the unmistakable paraphrase 
of “ Good-afternoon.” 

But Ted Urquhart had laid plans that were proof 
against hints and snubs and cold-shouldering on the 


PLAN— AND SUPER-PLAN 


97 


part of this young lady. She was going to come out 
with him. She was going to be taken to the nearest 
sheltered corner under the rocks, that was out of the 
way of the everlasting fisher-children with their mad- 
dening demand for “ un p’tit sou ! ” Then he was going 
to break it to her who it was she was going to pour out 
tea for that afternoon. Also to-morrow afternoon. 
Likewise on Sunday. Similarly on Monday. And pres- 
ently for good. Then, perhaps, then she’d have the 
grace to look a trifle less provocatively self-possessed. 
He went on conversationally. “ Oh, they’ve gone to the 
Cinema? Imagine spending an afternoon like this 
nipped in to red plush chairs in a stuffy tunnel, making 
one’s eyes ache with staring at moving pictures of 
4 Fool’s Head Looping the Loop,’ when one might be 
enjoying oneself.” 

“ They are enjoying themselves,” Rosamond cor- 
rected him. “People have different ideas of enjoy- 
ment.” 

“ I know. Mine, to-day, is out-of-doors ; even if the 
breeze does blow sand into the butter,” smiled Urquhart, 
without troubling any longer to keep the “ do-let-us- 
be-friends-now ” tone out of his voice. “ And I think 
we shall have the best of it.” 

Rosamond Fayre, speaking without meaning to do so, 
demanded, “ Who are 4 we ’ ? ” 

“ Why — why, you and I, since we are the only — 
What? ” took up the young man, ingenuously, as if a 


98 


PLAN— AND SUPER-PLAN 


sudden thought had struck him with dismay. “ Do you 
mean — You'll come and be the picnic, won’t you? ” 

“I?” said Rosamond Fay re. “Oh, I don’t think 
so. No.” 

Ted Urquhart, blunt as a boy, but in a way at which 
no one, she realised half-resent fully, could take offence, 
demanded, “Why not?” 

Now there were so many obvious reasons why she 
should not think of going, that Rosamond Fay re could 
not, at that moment, remember them. So she looked up 
at the presumptuous young man who had coolly de- 
manded the afternoon of her. And she protested, “ I 
— I have too much to do before post-time. Fix or six 
business-letters to write ! ” 

“ Half a dozen letters won’t take you two hours,” 
he persisted. “ Look here ! It’s only half-past two. 
I’m certain you can get all those business people, who- 
ever they are, written to by four o’clock. Now, can’t 
you? ” 

“ Well — er ” she hesitated. “ Really ! ” 

“ And my picnic was to have been at half-past four. 
Now, look here ” 

(Here he nearly slipped out a “ Nell.”) 

“ I’ll call for you again,” he concluded, firmly, “ at 
four o’clock.” 

Rosamond Fayre shook her bright head. 

“That — wouldn’t do,” she said, but she smiled a 
little, and with each syllable resolution dropped from 


PLAN— AND SUPER-PLAN 


99 


her. Involuntarily she glanced over his shoulder at the 
road to the shore. Never had sunlight and sands seemed 
so golden, or sea and sky so sapphire-blue, or the air 
so headily fresh, or she herself in such perfect tune for 
an outing. If her work were done, she would in the 
natural order of things go down afterwards to the sea’s 
edge. Why not with this young man who had, after all, 
rendered an unthinkable service to the employer, in 
whose place she, Rosamond, now stood? Suddenly she 
remembered something. That predecessor to Miss 
Fay re, the secretary who had been dismissed because 
she had slipped out in the evening to meet the chauffeur 
in the rose-garden! Rut what had that to do with it? 
That was so entirely different. So different that it 
made up her mind for her. So she added, brightly and 
conventionally, 44 Four would be too early. But — if 
you really don’t want to give up the idea of the picnic, 
come at a quarter past.” 

44 Good ! ” said Ted Urquhart briskly, and went. 

He went back to the Hotel where, in the Hall, he 
exchanged greetings with the little Dresden shepherdess 
of an American bride, who was sitting on the wooden 
settle busily arranging her tea-basket for two; a case 
of handy, expensive-looking toys, all silver tops and 
Bond Street leather. 

44 Jolly basket you’ve got,” said Urquhart. 

The little bride glanced at him over it. 

44 Do you want to borrow it?” she suggested with 


100 


PLAN— AND SUPER-PLAN 


a sudden roguish twinkle under her Watteau posy of a 
hat, “ for the afternoon? ” 

“ Why — how do you mean ? ” said this bachelor, non- 
plussed. “ Borrow it ? ” 

“ To take . . . Anybody out to tea with,” she con- 
cluded with a dimple. “ We'd be real glad to lend it! ” 
“ Here’s another,” thought the disconcerted Urqu- 
hart. “ Two of ’em in one day talking about Anybody. 
I shall have to be more careful.” 

“ Won’t you have it? Now, do ! ” said the just-mar- 
ried girl, kindly and simply, and held the basket out to 
him with both hands. 

“ Hang it, then, I will ! ” he thought, and took it 
with a laugh and a “ Well — Thanks awfully ! ” 

The dainty American gave him a smile that was a 
wedding-present in itself, and fluttered off to her 
Lucius; while Urquhart, kicking his heels against the 
white-washed wall opposite the Hotel, took out his 
cigarette-case — and his watch. It seemed several hours 
before those hands crawled up to a quarter to four. 

“ I couldn’t have stood much more of all this,” he 
decided presently. “ Now, I wonder if she’s going to 
give me a very bad time — first? In a way, after all, 
I’ve been practically spying on her. Pretty rotten way 
of behaving to a girl, in any other circumstances. But 
she’s my own sweetheart, when all’s said, and she’s going 
to know that now. I shall be thundering glad — only 
five minutes to four? — when it’s off my chest.” 


PLAN — AND SUPER-PLAN 


101 


He studied the handle of that very new tea-basket. 

“ Besides,” he thought, “ what about my privilege as 
an engaged man? ” 

(It was not the first time that the thought had struck 
him since he set eyes on Rosamond Fayre.) 

He thought, as he started off down the road, “ I 
shall have to beg for it and let her take her time about 
all that.” He found himself hurrying ridiculously, and 
checked his pace. “ Yes, I shall be all the more humble 
because, actually, I have the right to take that girl of 
mine into my arms and to kiss her as I choose!” 


CHAPTER VII 


CHECK! 

At five minutes past four he was back again at that 
white-walled, green-shuttered Hostel, that seemed now 
as familiar as if he’d spent years of his youth 
there. 

Upon the broad sill of the open window beside the 
porch, a still damp bathing-costume of scarlet silk was 
spread out like a “ DANGER ” flag. Inside, that girl 
of his was still sitting at her bureau, writing. He was 
about to apologise for being a little early, when she 
raised her small, burnished head on its creamy neck and 
said, quietly, “ Oh, you have come back. I am very 
sorry, but I am afraid I am not coming out with you 
this afternoon, after all.” 

What? 

“Not coming?” He stared blankly at her. She 
was putting a letter into an envelope; to her hand lay 
two or three other letters, addressed and stamped; 
also, his quick glance took in, that the envelope of a 
newly-torn-open telegram lay upon the bureau. 

He said quickly, “ I say, I hope nothing has hap- 
pened? I mean, I do hope you haven’t had any bad 
news ” 

102 


CHECK ! 


103 


“ Oh dear no,” broke in Rosamond Fayre, quickly 
and lightly. “ Nothing of the kind.” 

“Then why — — You said you’d come. You 

promised.” 

“ I know,” she said, and a coldness seemed wrapped 
about her, hiding the sweetness and colour of her like 
a suddenly-risen sea-mist. “ But I am not coming.” 

“ But ! ” He stood there dumfounded against 

that background of pink roses and plaster-white laugh- 
ing Cupids with the blue blink of the sea beyond the 
garden. “ If I may ask, why not? ” 

“ Oh ! I changed my mind,” she said. 

Urquhart for a moment did not trust himself to 
speak. He thought, “ Talk about those refractory 
mules we had such a fearful to-do with, that time in 
Montana ! Tractable and reasonable and sweet-tem- 
pered, compared to a woman! All right! 

He picked up his walking-stick. 

66 Good-afternoon, then,” he said, and wasted no time 
in further leave-taking. 

“ Please ! ” added the girl, raising her voice a trifle 
as he turned. “ Do you mind posting these letters for 
me as you pass the box by the crossroads? ” 

“ Not at all.” He took the three or four letters, of 
which she had laid one rather carefully on the top of 
the others. 

“ Thank you.” 

He was out of the gate without even a look. 


104 


CHECK! 


Tingling with disappointment, astonishment and 
rage, Ted Urquhart tramped back to the crossroads 
where he had parted that morning from that resourceful 
match-maker, Pansy. 

Not much of a success — her plan! 

What on earth was the meaning of all this? 

Nell’s look at him ! Her tone ! That curt snub ! 

After her promise ! 

“ Changed my mind ! ” 

What had happened to change it between his leaving 
her, at half-past two, and his reappearance just now? 

Was it that wire? 

She said there was nothing, though. 

Changed her mind! 

Sent him to the right-about, carrying this dashed 
tea-basket, and her letters to post. 

Pretty cool, that last touch! 

Her letters, indeed! He scowled down at them. 
Then his brows rose. The address in the curly, clear 
handwriting upon that topmost envelope, forced itself 
upon his recognition. He had seen it so many times 
already. 

“ To 

E. Urquhart, Esqre.” 

To himself! 

Nell had been writing to him. That very afternoon. 
While the man to whom she wrote was perhaps within a 
stone’s throw of her ! 


CHECK! 105 

He stood still in the road, staring at that en- 
velope. . . . 

With a hoot of derision, a big touring-car went 
scorching softly by him on the way to Hardelot ; tossing 
a dazzle of brass into his eyes, a smother of white dust 
all over him. He merely blinked, and stared at that 
envelope. ... A couple of fisher-girls passed him, their 
voluminous stuff petticoats swinging like kilts, their 
high, stiff corsets, covered in corn-flower blue cloth, 
clipping them over their white bodices. They called a 
friendly “ Bon jour ! ” to Urquhart. 

He stared at that envelope addressed to him. . . . 
“Now what's inside?” he thought. So familiar was 
each letter of the writing that he could make for him- 
self a mental copy of the sheet within, as far as the 
date, and the Hostel address and the “ My dear Ted.” 

And then what? 

Anything that would explain her behaviour just now? 

If he thought that — It was almost enough to tempt a 
man to open — A letter addressed to him, meant for 
him to read! 

Yes, but not now. No, dash it. A man couldn’t. 
She’d given it to him to post. The thing, whatever it 
was about, would have to be posted and reach him after 
much wandering and many days. He made a rough cal- 
culation. 

“ Eight weeks, perhaps,” he thought. “ It’ll turn 
up, readdressed, at The Court. Ah ! With luck it will 


106 


CHECK! 


have to be readdressed from The Court again, and sent 
on somewhere else, supposing I was — supposing we were 
off by that time, on our honeymoon. After all, we’re 
engaged ” 

The sun-tanned face cleared. He started off again, 
and presently smiled down with increasing cheerfulness 
at that unbetraying grey envelope. 

“ Probably this is a description of the scenery of this 
place, and about how the phosphorescence on the high 
tide in the evening is like summer lightning on the 
waves ! ” he reflected. “ Telling me what is to be found 
flourishing in the Hostel garden. . . . H’m . . . Cupids 
and 4 Match-Me ’ ! Possibly some ultra-meek version of 
those girls and their cliff-adventure, and of the young 
man — some stranger — who. ... Or wouldn’t she? 
Wouldn’t Nell mention him? ” 

He had reached the black-and-white post-box in the 
wall which the facteur, even in that tiny hamlet, visited 
thrice daily. 

He dropped in the three other letters, held his own 
in his hand for another moment. 

“ It’ll be something to smile over when we do get 
it,” he told himself with a half-amused, impatient sigh. 
“Well! So long!” 

And, with a “ final ” sounding little click of the iron 
flap, he dropped into the box his letter from Nell. 

Her fair face, proud, withheld and lovely, rose above 


CHECK! 


107 


every other image in his mind. Again he saw her, sitting 
there at that window writing ; her supple white hand on 
the green cloth of that bureau. . . . 

Suddenly, irrelevantly, he remembered something else 
about her. The first thing any woman would have 
looked for. He — an engaged man — had 1 only subcon- 
sciously noticed it, and had then forgotten all about it. 

He remembered now. 

For though Eleanor had written back to him at the 
beginning of their betrothal that she had decided upon 
no new stones, but that she would wear an old Urqu- 
hart heirloom of a sapphire with brilliants for her en- 
gagement-ring, he was sure that the girl, sitting writing 
to the fiance whom she believed far away — the girl wore 
no ring at all. 


CHAPTER VIII 


CROWS TO PLUCK 

Forty-eight hours after that check to his courtship, 
Ted Urquhart was speeding back to The Court, fetched 
over from France by a message of two words — 

“ Eleanor here .” 

It found him only too anxious to believe that it had 
been sent off by that enchanting tease, Nell herself. 

He hadn’t had another glimpse of her since the after- 
noon that he had planned to spend in making himself 
known to her — and that he’d actually spent in finding 
himself put further away from her than ever. 

Now she’d sent for him. 

Oh, the interminable homeward journey! 

Centuries, it seemed to him, were spent in pacing a 
stone quay, waiting, waiting until that never-ending 
luggage and those motor-cars were got aboard. Other 
ages in watching, from the steamer-rail, how slowly the 
tall hotels of Boulogne began to slide away as the boat 
lifted to the Channel waves. Further aeons of time in 
tramping a short deck cumbered with long chairs and 
with other passengers — who grumbled, perhaps, at the 
idiotic restlessness of that young fellow in the brown 
108 


CHOWS TO PLUCK 


109 


Burberry, striding up and down as if that could bring 
him any sooner to his destination, with a pipe between 
his teeth and that unmeaning smile coming and going 
on his face. 

For all the way home he was thinking of her. . . . 
“ Why,” he wondered, “ did she take it into her head 
to be off, when she was to have stayed at that Hostel 
for a month? By this time, of course, Uncle Henry 
will have told her that I’ve been there, too — when I 
went — and why I went. The chances are that she knows 
now who it was she snubbed and sent away like that. 
She knows it’s the man she’s got to meet this afternoon 
as her fiance ! ” 

Pictures of his waiting sweetheart rose between him 
and the foam-veined jade of the water sliding past the 
boat. He saw her — not, as before, on the plage of a 
foreign country, with waves at her feet and a young 
moon above her head — but in another setting alto- 
gether, adding her beauty to the beauty of his old 
home — (her home — ah, theirs). Coming slowly down 
the grey stone steps of the — (their) Terrace. He 
would make her take him round her — (and his) gardens. 
Then, as she stood reflected among the other lilies in the 
still waters of that new fish-pond of hers (and theirs) 
her lover, close beside her, would proceed to teach her 
a lesson or so about a thing or two. 

These were the anticipations that kept that smile 
flickering on the young man’s face. 


110 


CROWS TO PLUCK 


44 Now then ! I have a crow to pluck with you — sev- 
eral crows, in fact. A whole row of ’em,” Ted Urqu- 
hart imagined himself saying peremptorily to that girl 
of his. 44 Look here! To begin with — Where's your 
engagement-ring ? You promised you’d wear one,” he’d 
say. 44 And 3 r ou don’t. What’s become of that 
sapphire you said you’d chosen? (Matches your eyes, 
I expect. ) Where is it ? ” 

She’d have some impertinence ready. Then — 

44 Certainly I want you always to wear it,” Urqu- 
hart would go on (if this dashed sea-slug of a boat ever 
got to the other side). 44 Yes. If you fetch it I will 
wish it on to your finger, and you need not take it off 
again. No ! You needn’t run away for it this minute, 
thanks. Presently will do,” he’d say. 44 After I’ve 
plucked another crow with you first, please. Crow 
Number Two : — What did you mean hy promising to 
spend the whole afternoon tete-a-tete hy the sea with a 
strange young man ? ” 

Here, of course (thought Urquhart), Nell would 
protest that he could scarcely have the assurance to call 
himself a strange young man? 

44 Yes! You didn’t know, at the time, that I was 
anything else,” he would insist. It would do her good 
to be bullied about it. Didn’t they say that women pre- 
ferred a man who could bully them ? 44 The crime re- 

mains the same,” he’d say, 44 as if I had been a perfect 
stranger. A stranger who saw no ring on your finger ! 


CROWS TO PLUCK 


111 


An unfortunate chap who’d absolutely no idea that you 
were an engaged girl ! Nothing to warn him ! Dis- 
graceful. Aren’t you ashamed of yourself, Nell? Why, 
you death-trap ! Think of the mischief that you might 
(might, mark you!) have been doing all the time,” he’d 
say. “ Think of the possible damage to that wretched 
young man. He couldn’t guess that the pretty, un- 
attached-looking young woman who said she’d come out 
to tea was already booked to make a marriage of con- 
venience!” Yes, he could say it then; Nell would be 
perfectly aware what sort of a match theirs was turning 
out ! And her lover would go on severely 

“ Supposing this ignorant stranger had taken it into 
his head to fall in love with you at first sight? Some 
— young lunatics might be capable of that. Supposing 
that, in all good faith, he’d proposed to you? ” he’d 
say. “No thanks to you, Miss, that, that catastrophe 
happened to be out of the question. But here’s Crow 
Number Three: — Having given your word to the man , 
what made you break it? Why didn't you keep that 
appointment? ” 

Here, he thought, he’d have Nell in a cleft stick! 

For already he’d pieced out what he thought the 
reason for that sudden coldness of hers to the strange 
young man. The remembrance of one Ted Urquhart, 
whom she was to marry, had hinted that it wasn’t wise 
to encourage this sort of thing — picnics and so on with 
young men who couldn’t, perhaps, keep their admiration 


CROWS TO PLUCK 


112 

entirely out of their eyes. She’d have to own her duty 
towards her fiance — which meant owning that “ the 
strange young man ” was at least important enough to 
count! She wouldn’t say that. Urquhart would drive 
it home with 

“ Crow Number Four: — Why did you give him your 
letter to me to post? Wasn’t it so that he might see 
you’d got a man of your own to write to — Yes, well, of 
course he wouldn’t necessarily see that it was to a 
fiance. Of course it might have been to a father or a 
brother. Leave that crow for the present, then. Still, 
you did stick that letter on the top of the others for him 
to notice the address,” he’d say. “ Now, didn’t you? 
. . . Didn’t you, Dear?” 

Here her lover pictured Nell’s first gesture of hesita- 
tion. He imagined the first undecided sidewards turn of 
the small head (soon to be drawn down to its proper 
place on his shoulder), bright as a golden bud against 
the treillage of the old rose-temple ! — their rose-temple ! 
— to which he would be slowly strolling along beside her, 
a lovely girl in a lovely place l 

What did the place matter, though? All that mat- 
tered was summed up in the two words of her 
message 

“ Eleanor here” 

Still he was not disappointed that, after a fuming 
wait at Folkestone and a journey through Kent in a 


CROWS TO PLUCK 


113 


Victorian railway-train that had, as Urquhart ex- 
pressed it, “ two speeds, dead-slow and stop,” he found 
at the tiny station for The Court no Nell to meet him. 

He had not wished or expected that. 

Only he commandeered the wheel from a morose and 
public-school-voiced chauffeur and tore his Uncle’s car 
along homewards at a pace that made white avenue and 
green lime-trees whizz past in strips of white-and-green, 
like blades of that ribbon-grass. 

And now they’d rushed up the drive; they’d turned 
by the huge beech to the Terrace with the shallow-worn 
steps between grey Court and green lawns. Nowl 
Here was Home ! Their home ! He’d arrived 

One glance at the steps — No ! She wasn’t there 

Well, of course not 

Much more like her to withhold herself until the last 
minute ! Possibly she thought that he had to be taught 
a lesson? That it was she who had crows to pluck 
with him? And that he must wait on her, first? 
Right ! 

She’d be in the house 

Impetuously he dashed up those steps, out of the late 
afternoon sunlight, into the gloom and the cool of the 
old Hall, nearly knocking that officious butler into the 
glass case with General Urquhart’s giant tarpon that 
stood beside the study-door. 

In the study he found his Uncle, craning as ever over 
those books of his, difficult as ever to uproot from that 


114 


CROWS TO PLUCK 


printed Past and awaken to the Present — embodied in 
a hurrying lover. 

“Ah, Ted! You have come back,” the old man in- 
formed him, vaguely, pulling a lock of his own white 
hair back with groping fingers. “ You got my tele- 
gram.” 

“ Oh, yes, Uncle — Thanks ! ” 

H’m. So the wire was from him? Nell wouldn’t send 
it? 

“ Still, she might have dictated it,” thought the 
younger Urquhart, his eyes turning to the door that he 
had left ajar. 

The old man shut it carefully. 

“ Always a draught from that hall ! The worst of an 
old house ! Yes, I wired as soon as Eleanor came back 
from France. She wasn’t able to secure those docu- 
ments. Only the least important of them. If one 
wants a thing properly done, Ted, one has to be on the 
spot oneself. It isn’t always possible, I know. But 
writing — sit down, sit down — writing about a thing 
is seldom satisfactory. The delay — the waste of 
time ” 

“I know — I know — three years!” said Ted Urqu- 
hart. 

“Ah, you’ve found it so, too? I verily believe that 
everyone says the same thing. But I thought — I 
thought that you always transacted whatever you had 
had to do yourself, my boy, in those out-of-the-way 


CROWS TO PLUCK 


115 


places? I suppose you’ve had to write home for things, 
though, and that you’d have managed better if you 
could have chosen in person *” 

“Not I! I should never have chosen differently, 
Uncle,” declared Ted Urquhart quickly, his mind gay 
with images of the golden-haired girl he called his. “ If 
Eleanor ” 

“ Ah, yes. Perhaps you would like to see Eleanor 
now ” 

“ Perhaps ! ” the young man laughed, flushing a little. 

The elder Urquhart rose stiffly from his desk-chair. 

“ She said she would come down here as soon as she 
heard you had arrived, my boy,” he said, slowly, and 
put that hand like a branch of pale coral out to the 
bell. “ She was to be in her office all the afternoon. 
That little room off the drawing-room : she calls it her 
office. She has so many people to see on business; she 
has to have an office of sorts, Ted ” 

“ Of course, of course ” 

A nerve-racking pause, during which an old man and 
a young one sat silent in the old room with its book- 
lined walls, arrassed with velvety glooms. Outside a 
rose flattened itself against a mullioned pane. Inside 
brooded a church-like hush. 

Young Urquhart felt that the thumping of his heart 
must presently be heard through it. 

“ Crow Number Five to pluck with her presently,” 
he thought resentfully. “ Why did you keep me waiting 


116 CROWS TO PLUCK 

on thorns when I know you must have heard the car 
drive up? ” 

" Dear me, I think that bell cannot have rung,” said 
Eleanor’s maddening father, presently. He rang again. 

After what was possibly only the usual lapse of time, 
the butler appeared. 

“ Beeton, go — go to the little morning-room, will you, 
and let Miss Urquhart know that Mr. Ted Urquhart has 
come and that he is waiting in here.” 

“ Yes, Sir.” 

Another stage-wait. 

Mr. Ted Urquhart, with every nerve a-fret within 
him, remembered that a married man he knew once told 
him how nearly he had “ bolted ” from the altar and 
the bride who had let him in for the ordeal of waiting 
there for fifteen minutes. . . . 

This was a bad quarter of an hour that Nell was 
giving her man. . . . 

How long? How much longer? . . . 

Ah! At last! Steps across the hall. 

Urquhart sprang up again at the sound of them. 

Light, composed-sounding steps; not loitering, not 
hurrying, coming steadily across to the study-door. 

It opened. 

As it did so, young Urquhart stood tense, just ready 
to step forward to greet the girl who should enter. . . . 

But he did not step forward. 

For, he saw, this was not Nell who came in. 


CROWS TO PLUCK 


117 


She, in her dainty insolence, had sent somebody. 

This would mean the plucking of Crow Number Six. 
She had sent a small, dark, prim-faced little person, 
rather dowdily-dressed, a companion, a lady-secretary 
or something of that sort, to say that Miss Urquhart 
would be here presently, he supposed. Nell was keeping 
it up until the very last moment 

But in that moment old Mr. Urquhart’s vague, soft 
voice was speaking ; uttering incredible words. 

“ Ted, my dear boy,” he said, “ this is Eleanor.” 

“ This — — ? ” The startled, crude exclamation all 
but broke from young Urquhart’s lips. All the blood 
that had just been surging, warm and eager, through his 
heart, seemed to have ebbed away, leaving him deathly 
cold. He was aghast as any ivy-wreathed lover of 
Mythology, who for a day had chased some laughing and 
elusive maid in hot pursuit — no more eagerly than this 
Twentieth Century engineer in his tweeds and brown 
boots and close-cut hair — and with no better luck ! For 
at the end of the chase, what, in those old legends, was 
the hunter’s reward? That disconcerting miracle of 
Metamorphosis ! The glowing sweetheart vanished ; 
transformed into a chilling splash of brook-water across 
his face — an armful of fleshless reeds against his 
breast 

Young Urquhart stared. A voice within him seemed 
to be clamouring furiously : — “ But, look here ! This 
isn’t Nell ! It can’t be ! This isn’t the girl I’m here for, 


118 


CROWS TO PLUCK 


at all ! This is the wrong one ! The wrong girl , I say ! ” 
Unconscious of all this, the strange dark girl came 
sedately towards him, holding out a small hand, spare 
and brown as the stone of a date. Upon the other she 
wore a noticeably fine ring. 

“ How do you do, Ted? ” she said, composedly. And 
she offered to him the edge of an olive cheek — this girl 
upon whom he’d never set eyes before now. 

This was Eleanor ! 


CHAPTER IX 


THE WRONG GIRL 

“ How am. I to get out of it? What excuse am I to 
make? How on earth am I going to break off the en- 
gagement? ” 

This was Ted Urquhart’s first preoccupation after 
he had dismissed Mr. Beeton’s offer of help and had 
begun to unpack his own traps in the lavender-scented 
quarters which had always been his bedroom when as a 
little boy he had stayed with his father at The Court. 
He could still hardly realise that The Court was his 
own property ; that it would be his and that of the girl- 
cousin whom he had arranged to marry. 

No! He couldn’t marry her! 

Now that he had seen her, he knew, he knew that he 
could never marry Eleanor Urquhart! 

The small and naughty boy that lurks in every grown- 
up young man seemed to come out from his ambush at 
the back of his mind, grimacing and shrieking rebellion 
at the mere thought of it. — “ Don’t want to ! Don’t 
like it! Shan’t! Won’t! 

However more gently he put it, it was a rotten thing 
to have to tell a girl ! What reason could he possibly 
give her? The young man pondered as he moved in his 
119 


120 


THE WRONG GIRL 


shirt-sleeves between the towering tallboys and the lat- 
ticed casement darkened by ivy, unpacking and dis- 
posing his things neatly and quickly after the order 
of the old campaigner ; the row of boots here — best light 
for shaving here — and here the spirit-lamp arrangement 
for getting himself a cup of tea in the morning at an 
hour before any lazy English servant was stirring! — 
and as he pondered, there sounded clearer and clearer 
in his mind the unwelcome answer to his question. 

“ How am I to break off this senseless engagement? ” 

“ It can't be broken off! ” 

For he couldn’t tell that matter-of-fact-looking young 
woman that he found he’d been mistaken in his feelings ! 
In the whole question of their engagement, “ feelings ” 
had not been mentioned. 

Why should they? Between a girl and a man who’d 
never met? They were engaged for quite another motive 
— and that motive — the sharing of The Court — re- 
mained; common sense as ever. He would, if he broke 
it off, be turning out the girl and the old man — after 
having deluded them for a whole year into making sure 
they were there for good! He’d be wasting a year of 
his cousin’s chances of marrying somebody else. Some- 
body else might have wanted to marry her — a curate, 
say, or some kind of professional pal of Uncle 
Henry’s. . . . 

So here was he — Ted Urquhart — with his whole 
Future mortgaged ! 


THE WRONG GIRL 


121 


And only himself to thank for that! Asking for 
trouble ! Asking ! 

Fool that he’d been ! 

Didn’t it just show the insensate folly of getting 
one’s self engaged for any but the one right reason? 

Men did it, of course, and it seemed to work out all 
right. . . . There’d been a young French mechanician 
in Urquhart’s last camp, married to a girl in Arles for 
whom he seemed constantly homesick — yet he’d never 
seen this bride to speak to, alone, until after the wedding. 
Those “ arranged ” marriages for family reasons, on 
the idea that one well-brought-up girl made a man the 
same sort of wife as another well-brought-up girl, 
panned out well in France, presumably. One young 
Englishman was finding it a fairly infernal sort of 
failure. To be tied for life to a girl who — Well! She 
was a nice little thing enough. Rather fine eyes — for 
dark eyes. . . . 

But — he summed up a vague set of impressions by rue- 
fully telling himself that she didn’t seem able to make you 
feel she was a girl ! — Pretty hopeless kind of start, that ! 

A rose without scent — that was a girl without the 
allurement of sex. It wasn’t a matter of good looks 
alone, either. Some girls — not always the best-looking 
ones ! — had something about them that could surely 
make a man conscious of their attraction even a mile 
away, even on a pitch-dark night, say. They’d this 
“ something ” that called and called — inaudibly. It 


122 


THE WRONG GIRL 


beckoned and beckoned — without any visible sign that 
could be shown. It was the undying miracle of woman- 
hood; the appeal of the Eternal Feminine. He, Ted, 
had seen it again and again in the dark eyes of South 
American girls, in the less languorous glance of French 
lassies. That theatrical girl, now Pansy Vansittart, she 
possessed it in every movement of her sumptuous person. 
And it was incarnate, and a transfigured thing, in yet 
another girl 

He wheeled sharply as if the thought had stung him. 
He told himself that men could marry, and did marry, 
“ without much of that sort of thing.” Yes, and were 
quite reasonably happy, too, without it ! thought this 
Empire-maker a little defiantly. 

A man needn’t miss it. He mightn’t ever miss it unless 
— Until, too late, he happened to meet the other sort 
of girl! 

Here Urquhart sat down heavily on the edge of his 
bed — one of those countless mausoleums in which Queen 
Elizabeth is reported to have slept, — and he thumped a 
brown fist softly and viciously against the carved black 
garland of the bed-post. 

As if defending himself to some one, he muttered 
aloud — “ It would have been all right ! It wouldn’t 
have mattered if I hadn’t seen Nell first ! ” 

He knew now who it was that he had been calling 
“ Nell ” all this while in his heart. 


THE WRONG GIRL 


123 


For during a nightmare of afternoon-tea just now in 
the great drawing-room with his Uncle and the girl 
whom Ted had condemned himself to marry, Eleanor 
Urquhart’s staid little voice had broken through her 
fiance’s daze of consternation with questions, obviously 
meant to be friendly, about that anonymous, that disas- 
trous trip of his to France. 

“ And so you went to my Hostel, and found that you 
had had a journey for nothing, after all? Oh, dear, 
what a pity. I should like to have shown you the place 
myself,” Eleanor had said, pouring out tea with those 
little, competent, rather uncaressable-looking hands. 
She was doing her best, he saw, to be what she con- 
sidered 44 nice ” to this visitor who was also a prospective 
husband. 44 Sugar? Two lumps? (I must remember.) 
Don’t you think it w r as a good idea to start it abroad, 
Ted? Such a complete change, you know ” 

44 Quite a change,” poor Ted had absently agreed. 

44 Yes, to give those girls even a glimpse of another 
country, another sort of life from their own — Oh! I 
am sure it widens their minds,” Eleanor had said 
earnestly. 44 It is sometimes so disheartening, the nar- 
rowness of the outlook of those girls ! Some of them 
seem to care for nothing but just the tiny pleasures of 
the moment. Or what they look like. Or what one of 
their dreadful 4 young men ’ says ; their Tube lift-men 
and tram-conductors and shop-assistants ! As I some- 
times try to tell them — (Won’t you have some more 


1U 


THE WRONG GIRL 


bread-and-butter? You are eating nothing.) — as I tell 
them, ‘ These young m-m-men are, in nine cases out of 
ten, on a lower mental plane than you are yourselves ! 
They haven’t read as much; they haven’t associated as 
much with another class ; they haven’t thought as much. 
Why, why be swayed by their opinions? Form your 
own judgments! ’ I tell them. 4 For the honour of your 
sex, be yourselves, not things that just talk, and dress ’ 
(as they do, Ted), and behave in a way that they think 
will please their quite uncultivated young men ! ” 

“But these young men,” Urquhart had suggested, 
diffidently enough, “ are, I suppose, all those girls have 
to marry.” 

“ Why should that decide everything? ” Eleanor had 
argued, as energetically, as unembarrassedly as if she 
were discussing any other subject — say half-day closing 
— that affected her girls. “ Why should not they — 
instead of descending to the level of the young man’s 
intelligence — try to raise him? I beg them to do that. 
Isn’t that a better standard to set? ” 

“ Oh — quite — ” Urquhart had said, with an ir- 
relevant echo of the talk of Pansy ringing in his mind 
as he had listened to this other young woman. 

“And you saw my girls, of course? Five of them 
there now. They wouldn’t know who you were, Ted, I 
suppose? ” 

“ Er — no. They didn’t know.” 

“ Not even Miss Fay re? ” 


THE WRONG GIRL 


125 


“ Miss Fay re,” Urquhart had repeated with a boding 
flash of enlightenment. 44 Now, which was she? ” 

“ Rosamond Fayre; a very tall girl with a great deal 
of fair hair; nice-looking — my secretary. I left her in 
charge of the place while I went to Paris.” 

“ Ah, your second-in-command. Yes, I saw her, of 
course,” Eleanor’s fiance had forced himself to say 
quietly, 44 but without catching her name.” 

“ Then you will have to be properly introduced when 
she comes back,” Eleanor had said, pleasantly precise, 
44 on Thursday.” 

“She’s — to come back here?” Ted Urquhart had 
heard himself ask. “ And are you going back to France, 
then, yourself? ” 

“ No. I’ve another most excellent person to send 
over to take on the Hostel until the end of this month. 
A Lady Miriam Settlement worker, whose holiday has 
fallen through in the nick of time,” Eleanor had ex- 
plained busily. “ A Miss Wadsworth — a great-niece of 
The Wadsworth, you know, the Minority Report man 
— a most charming and cultured woman. She will be 
glad to take charge — especially as the more difficult of 
the girls are due back now — and that allows me to have 
Rosamond Fayre free for the Amalgamated Girls’ 
Garden Party.” 

“ 4 Rosamond Fayre ! ’ Rosamond Fayre,” Ted had 
echoed silently. “ She was more like a 4 Nell ’ ! And 
so she’s this girl’s secretary? What on earth sort of a 


126 


THE WRONG GIRL 


— Rather a bad one, I should say ! What’s she secre- 
tarying for, at all? Is she one of that 4 intelligent ’ lot? 
Surely she doesn’t go in for thinking a girl ought to 
be mugging up books all day about how to be 6 herself,’ 
instead of playing up to a mere man? ” 

But as he asked himself the question he knew that to 
that girl being 44 herself ” and living to delight her 
lover would some day mean just one and the same 
thing. . . . 

Eleanor, putting her cup down, had chatted briskly 
on, so interested in this garden-party, whatever it was, 
that it preserved her from any self-consciousness before 
this stranger-fiance. She had been quite ready to accept 
him as a matter of fact! She’d behaved as a well- 
brought up docile child behaves when there is ushered 
into her nursery 44 the new Nana ” ! She had been treat- 
ing her prospective husband with the same unruffled 
friendliness with which she had then turned to his Uncle. 

44 1 knew you’d resign yourself to the inevitable, 
Father ! As soon as we heard that there was scarlatina 
at Park, and that the Duchess had to put the whole 
place into quarantine, I knew you’d say we might have 
the party here ” 

44 Very well, my dear, very well — I’ll go out for the 
whole day,” Mr. Urquhart’s fatigued voice had replied. 
44 I’ll take the car over to Little Merton and have a look 
at that parish register I heard of the other day. No, 
no, I’ll not stay here, Eleanor. I — I can’t cope with 


THE WRONG GIRL 


m 


these young ladies. I — I haven’t forgotten that last re- 
union you had. Ladies who lost their way down the 
corridors — invaded my study — lectured me on the Mar- 
riage Laws. They alarmed me,” the old gentleman had 
confessed, 44 with their views — They — Ah, I shall be 
gravely anxious, Eleanor, until they have come and gone. 
The pictures, Ted ! — The Romney ! At least we ought 
to have the Holbein room locked up ! ” 

44 But these are not the Suffrage-people, Father, this 
time,” Eleanor had explained, patiently. “ These are 
just my working girls ! All the Clubs in London, amal- 
gamated. They are bringing down ” 

44 Female hooligans, my dear Ted,” concluded his 
Uncle with a deploring shake of his white head. 
44 Maenads who hold orgies and Saturnalian gambols on 
these lawns ” 

44 Father, they only dance ! Dancing is their great 
outlet,” Eleanor had explained. 44 1 shall have a band 
for them on the Terrace. I shall tell Rosamond to write 

to one of those ladies’ orchestras ” 

44 More ladies ! ” old Mr. Urquhart had groaned. 
44 Ted, my dear boy, you and I will be well out of it on 
that day. We will decamp, and leave the Bacchae to 
Eleanor and Miss Fayre.” 

That miserable night, as Urquhart went to sleep, his 
last thought was that he would see Miss Fayre — since 
that was Nell’s true name — in two days’ time. . . . 


128 


THE WRONG GIRL 


It seemed to Ted that only that thought kept him 
going at all during this ghastly sojourn in this house 
as a man engaged — to the wrong girl. It seemed to him, 
as he walked through those grounds and stood beside 
that new fish-pond, and explored the rose-temple, always 
with that sedate and authoritative little courier of a 
cousin of his — as he touched her cool olive cheek in morn- 
ing or evening greeting — and listened politely to her 
talk of her plans and of her secretary’s duties, it seemed 
to Ted that Life could hold nothing worse in store for 
him. 

Here he was mistaken. 

To be with the wrong girl is bad enough; but its 
Purgatory is peaceful enjoyment compared with what 
it immediately becomes with the entrance upon the scene 
of the right girl herself. 


CHAPTER X 


THE OTHER GIRL 

Rosamond Fayee, secretary, returned to her employer’s 
house on Friday evening. 

It was just as Beeton was preparing to sound the 
dressing-bell that the tall girl, coated and veiled from 
the motor, came running lightly up the steps and into 
the hall to be met by Eleanor, over whose compact little 
shoulder a masculine figure might be seen lurking none 
too happily, in the background. 

“ Ah, Rosamond, you are late,” Eleanor greeted 
her pleasantly. The girls never attempted a kiss ; Elea- 
nor, because she would not have considered it business- 
like to be on those terms with a salaried clerk, however 
much of a friend she was; Rosamond, because, like 
many girls of a generous temperament, she was sparing 
of indiscriminate caresses. (In dreams her kisses might 
be many . . . in real life she waited for — a dream. . . .) 

They shook hands, and then Eleanor made a little 
summoning movement of her dusky head. The young 
man behind her straightened himself and came forward 
to that long-evaded, now inevitable introduction. 

“ A surprise for you, Rosamond,” said Eleanor, 
smiling placidly. “ You two have met, I hear, but with- 
129 


130 


THE OTHER GIRL 


out either of you knowing who the other was. This is 
my fiance , Mr. Ted Urquhart.” 

The young man — rather wooden-faced — bowed to 
Miss Fayre, who, without displaying too much astonish- 
ment, gave the lightest laugh of conventional amusement 
as she nodded. 

“ How funny this is,” she said brightly, “ isn’t it? 
How do you do, Mr. Urquhart? (We entertained your 
fiance unawares, Eleanor, that he was wishing us all at 
the bottom of the sea because we could not produce the 
rightful mistress of the Hostel to talk to him.) Yes, a 
perfect crossing, thanks. What, a parcel in my room? 
How nice! I always like to find something unexpected 
waiting for me, don’t you? ” 

She stood a little aside to let her employer precede 
her upstairs, then she went off to her own room, smiling. 

That smile deepened as Rosamond opened her white 
door and stepped across the pretty room to the open 
latticed casement. The sunset was misty golden beyond 
the dove-coloured sweep of Kentish Weald with here 
and there a church-spire holding up a slim blue finger; 
the lime-trees of the Court Avenue made a dark frame 
for the picture. It was all utterly, unsuspectingly 
peaceful ; and very English. After all, Rosamond found 
it was rather pleasant to be back again in England. 

That was not why she smiled, though. 

“ So that’s Mr. Ted Urquhart ! He little knows that 
I have known that for nearly a week now! He shall 


THE OTHER GIRL 


131 


never know how I found out, either,” decided Rosamond 
with a little laugh. 

And as she slipped off her travel-dusty costume and 
splashed in freshening hot water, she laughed once or 
twice over the pictures in her mind. A picture of the 
hall at the Hostel and of the walking-stick that a young 
man had dropped there while he went off post-haste to 
fetch a tea-basket, and that a young woman had, sus- 
pecting nothing, picked up. A tell-tale walking-stick 
with a big silver knob engraved with initials, and a crest 
for all the world to see. Not the sort of stick a young 
man ought to carry who’s set his mind upon travelling 
incognito ! 

Then the picture of Ted Urquhart’s straight back as 
seen from the Hostel window, marching off with indigna- 
tion expressed in every line of it! The picture of his 
face just now! 

“ So, that is the young man of the Camp, and the 
runaway bulls, and the revolver fights, is it? That’s 
4 my dear Ted,’ in fact, to whom Eleanor — or I — used 
to send off those extremely interesting letters every 
mail? What a grotesque plan that was.” She laughed 
as she unwove her plaits and twisted them again into 
the Clytie knot on the back of her neck. 

66 And how I used to wonder what he looked like, this 
unseen young man to whom I signed myself 6 His affec- 
tionately.’ Well, I know now. And he doesn’t know 
I’ve seen most of his — er — love-letters.” She laughed 


THE OTHER GIRL 


again. “ How furious he would be ! He is furious 
enough with me now,” thought Rosamond Fay re. “ I 
saw that. Furious because I had to hear his name at 
last. Furious because a third person knows of that silly, 
silly trick he played — tried to play off on his fiancee ! 
She doesn’t seem to be particularly angry,” reflected 
Rosamond. “ I shouldn’t have spoken to him for weeks, 
if he’d been anything to do with me. As it was, I was 
rather annoyed with him for the moment. Not now. 
Oh, no ! Now I’m only interested to watch him — and 
Eleanor. They’ve had a week, now, to find out each 
other’s tastes, and so on. ... I suppose he likes her? 
I expect he’ll loathe me cordially henceforward.” 

She hummed lightly a scrap of an old song as she 
finished doing her hair: 

“ My father's a hedger and ditcher — 

“ It’s getting late in the summer to dress for dinner 
without turning on the lights ” 

Catching together her blue crepe kimono, she stepped 
across to the window again. With a little jingle of 
brass rings she drew the cream-coloured casement cur- 
tains, catching, as she did so, the sound of a crunching 
step on the gravel outside, the whiff of a cigarette. 

“ Alone. I wonder what he’s thinking about. Wait- 
ing for Eleanor to come down, of course,” said Rosa- 
mond Fayre as she stepped back. 

Behind those drawn curtains she snapped on the 


THE OTHER GIRL 


1SS 


lights. They shone on that waiting parcel, a square 
white carton box with a dressmaker’s name (“ Madame 
Cora”) splashed in scarlet letters across it, containing 
a new evening frock for Miss Fayre, who spent what 
Eleanor privately considered an utterly dispropor- 
tionate amount of her salary upon clothes. 

“ I wonder what Eleanor is going to put on 4 for 
Him ’? ” mused Rosamond as she sat down on the bed 
and cut the scarlet strings of the box. “ Surely she’ll 
stop having a soul above dressing to please a man now? 
Lots of girls could take Eleanor’s looks and make them 
rather Spanish and piquante. But will she? ” 

Layer after layer of tissue paper rustled at her feet 
with the sound of drifted autumn leaves. 

Rosamond took out the frock. 

It was of three-tiered pink, fading from the deep blush 
of the lowest flounce to the creamy heart of the corsage, 
and but for the shot-weighed hems it would have seemed 
light as a silken scarf across her arm. 

“ Now there’s something really mysterious about a 
woman’s pretty frock that’s not been put on yet,” 
thought Rosamond. Her eyes drank in the dainty 
colour. “ She doesn’t yet know what will happen to her 
while she’s wearing it. How can Eleanor call clothes 
6 so inessential 7 A frock? Why, it’s a fateful thing! 
Now, this ” 

She stepped into the pink sheath. 

“Will it be an unlucky frock? A hoodoo? Some 


134 


THE OTHER GIRL 


are ! ” She drew it up about her pliant column of a 
body. “ Or will it be a ‘ frock of fascination 5 that 
brings a good time whenever or wherever it’s worn? 
Perhaps ! ” She slipped sculptured arms into those short 
transparent sleeves. “ Oh ! Feels like crisp butterfly’s 
wings against one ! Yes ! Surely Eleanor will learn to 
enjoy clothes for his sake? Surely he’ll teach her that? 
Though I don’t think much of him, even if he does romp 
up and down the Andes with castings on his back. 
(Obstinate-looking back.) Now, which is the — ah, 
here ” 

She joined the silken waist-belt, humming her old 
song: 

“ My father's a hedger and ditcher — 

My mother must card and spin — 

Fancy when they spun all their own frocks ! ” 

With busy enjoyment she fastened silver snaps down 
the front, still humming 

“ But Vm a poor little critcher — < 

That’s it ” 

She coaxed a tiny hook into a silken loop, 

“ And money comes slowly in! 

Now ! ” 

She turned to the long glass of her wardrobe a glance 
of triumphant enquiry. 

Yes! 


THE OTHER GIRL 


135 


It was a success. 

Ah, blessed fashions of Nineteen Fourteen, that 
revived all the frilly, feminine vanity and charm, with 
none of the rigidity of the Crinoline Period! That 
corolla of petal shapes spreading below the hips as the 
girl that lent it movement turned slowly, lifted an arm, 
took a step aside and back again ! Why, this garment 
was just a flower made into a frock! She smiled with 
frankest pleasure at her own white-framed reflection. 
And the last cunning touch was to overlay it with 
that film of misty-blue chiffon which softened all that 
warmer colour with just the quality of pink rose- 
leaves ! 

“ My frock ; distinctly mine ! ” murmured the girl. 
“ I’ve never looked so nice in anything. I’ll write and 
tell Mrs. Core that. Clever little woman ! Worth double 
what she charges. It is nice ! M — m ! ” 

She pursed her mouth into the shape of a kiss wafted 
to that preening, radiant image of gold-and-white-and- 
rose. 

“Rather a darling! The frock, I mean, of course. 
Oh, I shall be happy in this, I know. Is it too idiotically 
silly and frivolous, after all, to think it matters so 
much? It’s not looked upon as frivolous to enjoy a 
good picture? No! That’s artistic interest. Then 
why isn’t it ‘artistic’ to enjoy actually being the de- 
lightful colouring and the graceful 4 line,’ and all that? 
It gives such pleasure, and not only to oneself,” mused 


136 


THE OTHER GIRL 


Rosamond. “ Now, shall I, or not, wear just a bud 
fastened into the lace here? ” 

She had chosen that bud from the bowl of roses set 
on her corner writing-table ; she was pinning it in when 
a sudden thought checked her. 

“ Why ” 

The smile faded from her face. A little, unreasonable 
chill seemed to pass over her. 

Why, she had forgotten. This brand-new frock was 
not for wearing at dinner to-night! This was for 
“ special ” occasions ; parties. She’d only been trying 
it on to see if it needed to be sent back for any altera- 
tion. It wasn’t as if her sweetheart had just come home. 
She'd nobody — nothing to dress for, to make herself into 
charming pictures for, to-night. Yet here she was 
prinking, tittivating and taking thought of her appear- 
ance, just as if she were, say, in Eleanor’s place! 

The lace at her breast stirred over a little sigh. 
“ Rather a pity, Rosamond, that you haven’t got — 
somebody nice of your own to admire you just now,” 
she thought. “ This frock simply calls for it ! . . . 

Well, some day, perhaps, before it’s quite worn out ! 

But I had better make haste and get out of it, now ” 

Rather slowly she began to unfasten those snaps, — 
“ since it does fit all right.” 

She coaxed that tiny hook out of that silken noose. 

Then, with a jerk, she stepped out of the frock, and 
gave a little laugh. Her face cleared into gaiety again. 


THE OTHER GIRL 137 

Briskly she began putting the new vanity away, hum- 
ming as she did so, the end of her old song: 

“ Last night the dogs did bark. 

(I hope dinner won’t be long. I’m quite hungry.) 

And I went out to see — 

(Better stuff this tissue-paper back into the sleeves.) 

And every lass had a spark , 

But there's nobody comes for me! ” 

She turned back to the wardrobe. 

66 The old black ninon rag, I suppose ” 

That old black ninon rag flattered her neck and 
shoulders as even the rose-pink lisse had not done. — 
“ And perhaps my one and only remaining piece of 
modest jewellery ” 

This was a tiny antique paste slide and clasp on a 
velvet ribbon. Another girl might wear black, to show 
up the contrast with her throat, but Rosamond’s neck- 
band was of velvet insolently white, inviting comparison 
with the skin against which it could scarcely be seen. 

She was fastening the clasp as the purr of the gong 
through the house rose into a growl and died down 
again to a mutter. 

“ Good. . . . There is dinner. I wonder if Mr. Ted 
Urquhart thinks that the secretary ought to be having 
it in the housekeeper’s room, with a frock right up to 


138 


THE OTHER GIRL 


her chin, and a neat little white turn-over collar?” 
meditated the secretary as she came downstairs. 44 Of 
course I shall have to show him, now, that I do know 
4 my place,’ and that I realise I’m merely a menial in 
this house. No part of my duty to dress for the young 
master of the house, even if I did have to write love- 
letters to him ! His house. What a pity I don’t wear 
an apron,” she concluded with an inward chuckle as she 
walked demurely into the oak-panelled dining-room of 
which the long table below the chandelier was unused 
except for a large party. 

The family dined at a small oval table set in one of 
the windows. 

Old Mr. Urquhart, with Charles II. gold buttons on 
his dress-waistcoat, faced his daughter, who wore an all- 
white lace dress that made her look as dark as a creole 
without a creole’s warmth. Eleanor was invariably neat, 
but always her neatness looked as if it had been achieved 
without the aid of a mirror. Surely, if she’d glanced at 
her 44 effect ” in the glass, that little brunette would 
never have chosen a necklace of silver with sapphires, 
the special stone of a fair-skinned woman? 

Rosamond found herself opposite to Mr. Ted Urqu- 
hart — whom Eleanor’s girls, no doubt, would have con- 
sidered better-looking than ever in evening dress. 

44 Amusing to think what a much larger party we 
were last time I sat down to table with Eleanor’s dear 
Ted,” reflected Miss Fayre. “Yes; there’s no reason 


THE OTHER GIRL 139 

why I shouldn’t get what amusement I can out of the 
whole thing? ” 

The amusement, she found, could begin at once. 

It began with what was evidently a discussion by 
Eleanor of some features of the party arranged for next 
Saturday, and what was as obviously a repetition of 
old Mr. Urquhart’s sentiments thereupon. 

“Well, Eleanor, I wash my hands of it. It’s Ted’s 
turf, actually.” 

“ But we’ve agreed not to ruin the turf! We’ll have 
the dancing on the smaller lawn behind the walled garden 
instead! I’ve told Marrow he can’t object to that,” 
decreed Eleanor. “ After all, this whole place doesn’t 
belong to the g-g-gardener ! He behaves as if it did ! 
So like a man ! No sense of p-p-proportion at all. We 
should do far better to have one of those Horticultural 
Hostesses here, with two or three girls from the Garden- 
ing College at Glynde under her ” 

“Oh, heaven! Yet more girls,” mourned old Mr. 
Urquhart, crumbling his bread. 

And Rosamond Fayre, now taking up the attitude 
that she decided would bring her in the most harmless 
amusement, looked deprecatingly timid above her soup. 

“ Well, my dear, you will have the field to yourself this 
time. You and Miss Fayre ” — the old gentleman was, 
by the way, a great admirer of Miss Fay re’s — “will 
have the field to yourselves. Let me know at what hour 
you think it will be — ah — safe to return.” 


140 


THE OTHER GIRL 


“ There is to be a special train back to Charing Cross, 
Father, to take the girls up. They’ll be gone by seven, 
won’t they, Rosamond? ” 

“ Oh, yes,” murmured Rosamond Fay re. 

All the “ apron ” that she had regretted being unable 
to tie on over her black dress sounded in her meek voice. 
Every note of it was calculated to impress upon her 
neighbour opposite that she, Miss Fayre, was now not 
the young lady-in-charge of that Holiday Hostel in 
France. Oh, no ! but the humblest of secretaries. The 
most unassuming of hired menials at Urquhart’s Court 
— Mr. Ted Urquhart’s Court. She hoped he saw that. 
He hadn’t looked at her — of course. 

“ Are you feeling a little tired ? ” Eleanor asked. 

“ Oh, no, thanks,” uttered the secretary, mildly. 
“ Why?” 

“ You seem so quiet to-night.” 

“ Perhaps Miss Fayre also,” pronounced old Mr. 
Urquhart, “ is trembling at the thought of the invading 
hordes.” 

“ No, really Fm not,” protested Miss Fayre, shyly. 

“ Anyhow, Father, you needn’t tremble ! You’ll be 
off before they come,” his daughter told him, “ and 
you’ll be going with him, Ted, of course.” 

“Oh, will he be going too?” thought Rosamond. 
“Yes, I suppose he’s sure to. He won’t care to be one 
of a 4 horde ’ surrounding her.” Without looking at 


THE OTHER GIRL 141 

him, she saw the young engineer glance up as he said 
quietly 

“ Oh, no, Eleanor. You’re not going to shut me out 
of these festivities. I’ll stay and see the fun.” 

“ Fun — oh, it wouldn’t be any fun for you, Ted,” the 
young mistress of the house said absently. “ I’m afraid 
I shouldn’t be able to attend to you at all. You see, 
it’s a regular gathering of the Clans. Not only the two 
hundred Club girls, but several of the workers that I 
don’t seem to get a chance of talking to at any other 
time. I really shan’t have a minute ; that shall I, Rosa- 
mond? ” 

“ I am afraid you won’t,” agreed her secretary 
politely, the while she thought, “ That will choke him off, 
surely. Knowing that Eleanor won’t have time for him. 
He won’t want her Two Hundred. He’ll go.” 

“ I think I’ll stay, all the same,” said the quiet, easy 
voice of the young man who hadn’t looked at Rosamond, 
“ unless Uncle Henry wants somebody with him? ” 

“ Ah,” thought Rosamond, “ will Mr. Urquhart think 
he wants him? ” She must have been rather counting, 
she found, on the added amusement of watching Elea- 
nor’s dear Ted ousted for an afternoon by Eleanor’s 
beloved girls. For it was with quite a little thrill of 
gladness that she heard old Mr. Urquhart tell the young 
man to do just what he liked. 

“ Then that’s all right. I shall stop and lend a hand, 
Eleanor. Never thought of doing anything else.” 


142 


THE OTHER GIRL 


“ He must like her very much, after all — I mean he 
must like her,” was Rosamond’s thought, followed by, 
44 Why, of course he likes her ! He’ll put up with the 
whole of the hen-party for her.” 

44 And if I’m talking to these people all the time, 
Ted,” she heard the engaged girl say later on during 
dinner, 44 you’ll have to get Miss Fayre to show you 
what to do ” 

44 If — she’ll be so kind,” said young Urquhart. 

Miss Fayre gave him a polite half-glance. It was not 
one of the secretary’s duties to smile at him, after all. 
Sitting there eating his dinner as stodgily as if — well, 
as if he weren’t capable of saving a girl’s life, for in- 
stance. But perhaps he was so fond of the society of 
girls that he preferred them in hundreds? 

44 There was one young man of the Classics who in- 
sisted on looking on at the Bacchanalian Orgies,” old 
Mr. Urquhart was intoning presently. 44 Remem- 
ber his fate, Ted. He was torn to pieces, was he 
not?” 

44 I’m not looking on, though,” announced the young 
man, 44 I’m helping you.” And he raised his close- 
cropped brown head and looked across the centrepiece, 
a white china basket full of peaches held up by three 
white china Cupids — looked for the first time directly 
at Rosamond Fayre. 

And this time it was she who did not look. 

“ Very well; you go to Mr. Ted Urquhart, then, 


THE OTHER GIRL 


143 


Rosamond,” said Eleanor, in her 44 settling ” voice, 
44 when anything’s wanted.” 

Rosamond, intent upon the little silver-handled knife 
in her hand, said, deferentially, 44 Yes. Thank you. 
Only — I don’t think Mr. Ted Urquhart quite realises 
what he has let himself in for ! ” 


CHAPTER XI 


THE HEN-PARTY 

It was the afternoon of the great Hen-party at Urqu- 
hart’s Court. 

Imagine a giantess’s piece-box of scraps of every- 
coloured silk, muslin, and stuff, — blue, yellow, orange, 
and a pervading, blasting shade of pink — tumbled out 
haphazard over a giant’s green billiard-table, and stirred 
by a freakish breeze into never-ceasing movement. This 
was the first impression of Eleanor’s invading army of 
guests upon the eye. 

Upon the ear smote the indistinguishable unending din 
of their voices. It filled all the air above the grave old 
basking house, and the stately lawns. Not actually loud, 
but high-pitched, shrill. . . . 

That clatter of feminine voices without a steadying 
bass among them! That acre-wide flutter of feminine 
garments with never a jacket-suit to give them value! 
That pinky-white speckle of feminine faces 

There appeared to be nothing but women, women, 
women at The Court to-day. For Eleanor, with so 
many women-volunteers, never engaged waiters for these 
occasions. 

Even Mr. Beeton, the butler, was lying low in his 
144 


THE HEN-PARTY 


145 


pantry, sulking indignantly to think that a gentleman’s 
country-house — a house where Mr. Beeton was in 
service ! had been turned topsy-turvy into something 
more like Hampstead Heath on a Whit-Monday than 
anything he’d ever come across in the whole course of 
his experience — not that he knew anything about that 
neighbourhood except by hearsay. (He was an old 
sailor.) Mr. Marrow, the gardener, broken-hearted to 
think what those regular hooligans of young women 
might be up to on his lawns and in his gardens, had also 
taken the afternoon off — while those lawns and gar- 
dens hummed and buzzed and twittered with the 
invaders. 

Rosamond Fayre, wide-hatted and cool in her white 
gown, paused for one moment on the Terrace where rows 
of tables and benches were set out, before she turned 
into the house on her next errand. 

And out of the ivy-draped entrance of the house there 
came out to meet her the one and only man left about 
the place that day. 

Ted Urquhart, nut-brown against his flannels, carried 
a large glass pitcher in either hand. All the afternoon 
he’d been carrying something: pyramids of cut cake, 
dishes of cucumber-sandwiches, relays of jugs of hot 
water ; and all the afternoon he had worn the ultra-sweet 
and restrained look of one who longs to hurl at the 
nearest head that which he carries. 

This time it was iced lemonade. 


146 


THE HEN-PARTY 


“ Where do I take this to, Miss Fay re?” he asked, 
quietly. 

“ To Nurse Agatha’s Invalid Girls’ table. The 
furthest, under the lime-trees,” Rosamond instructed 
him, a little shortly, pointing. 

And as she turned into the house she thought, “ This 
time I shall give him the slip. Really, Eleanor’s dear 
Ted is too absurd this afternoon ! Just because Eleanor 
told him he was to take his orders from me he elects to 
take them this way ! Puts on that deadly-docile manner 
which always means that a man is smouldering with 
rage, and makes himself into Eleanor’s secretary’s 
shadow ! ” 

For that many-coloured pool of girls on the lawn 
might swirl and surge and re-form, but all the afternoon 
it had been navigated by two figures in white never far 
apart ; the tall fair girl so closely followed by the taller 
sun-burnt man. 

“ Just because Eleanor can’t attend to him. Silly of 
him to show he minds ! Fancy his minding so much. . . . 
Eleanor must have managed to make him very fond of 
her somehow. That’s a mercy ! Curious that you never 
can tell what will attract any given kind of man,” re- 
flected Rosamond Fayre, as she looked into old Mr. 
Urquhart’s usually hushed study, now delivered over 
to the Ladies’ Orchestra, white-clad, with blue velvet 
Zouave jackets, who were giggling joyously over an 
unduly prolonged feast of Mr. Marrow’s peaches and 


THE HEN-PARTY 


147 


lemonade. “ So sorry to uproot you, but when you’ve 
finished, would you mind playing for some more dancing 
on the smaller lawn ? ” suggested Rosamond Fay re, 
sympathetically. 

As she came out into the corridor again she was again 
confronted by that suppressed, that meek figure in nut- 
brown and white. 

In a voice as mild as Rosamond’s own voice when she 
was very much 44 the Secretary Ted Urquhart said, 
44 All the parties have had tea now, Miss Fayre. And 
lemonade. And ice-cream. Can’t I bring you 
some ” 

44 Oh, I had some tea with the United Laundry Girls, 
thank you,” said Rosamond Fayre. 

44 Then what,” persisted Ted Urquhart smoothly, 
44 can I do for you now? ” 

44 Well ! Perhaps you might take Miss Newnham and 
her friends — those ladies who brought down the Ken- 
nington Road Group — and show them the grounds, and 
the fish-pond ” 

44 Is that the Stinor-Wrangler Lady and her party?” 
asked young Urquhart. For one second his face ex- 
pressed a wish to show that party into the fish-pond and 
leave them there. But he only said, 44 I’d rather do 
something for the girls themselves if I might? ” 

44 Play games with them, then ? ” suggested Rosamond, 
not without mischief, as she walked away from him into 
the Hall. For here they were met by a nearer sound 


148 


THE HEN-PARTY 


against that background of incessant treble clamour — 
the sound that drifted in of a singing game, played on 
the cleared portion of the Terrace by one of the 
“ nursery-parties.” 

These girls still wore their befrizzled hair bobbing 
against their backs and their skirts swinging up to their 
knees as their light heels kicked up Mr. Marrow’s gravel 
as they sang in chorus: — 

“ We're waitin' for a part-ner! 

Waitin' for a part-ner! 

Open the ring! And choose your Queen 
(A sound of scuffling here) 

And kiss her when you've got her in." 

Then, more loudly as Rosamond Fayre and the one 
man left at Urquhart’s Court appeared framed in the 
doorway under the old red-brick shield, the little Cock- 
neys sang: — 

“ On the carpet you shall meet 
As the grass grows in the wheat; 

Stand up now upon your feet , 

And kiss the one you love so sweet! 

We're waitin' ” 

“Are you coming to play this game?” the young 
man in the doorway rather brusquely asked Rosamond 
Fayre. 


THE HEN-PARTY 


149 


I? No time! ” she said, blushing a little for no rea- 
son except that she found herself for no reason blushing 
a little. 

She left Mr. Ted Urquhart to watch that game or 
play it as he chose, and descended the Terrace steps 
to the lawn again. 

The dabs of moving colour seen from above became 
moving figures, most of whom Rosamond knew by sight. 
. . . She walked beset by greetings from Eleanor’s girls, 
smiling to herself as the pervading buzz disentangled 
itself into tags of sentences. 

44 Hoo ! Talk about lar-arf ! If you’d ’a’ seen me 
and her gittin’ it done, ready to come, at four this 
mornin’ ” 

44 Why, in the train cornin’ along ” 

44 I says to ’im, well, if I don’t go to-day, I says, 
there may never be a next time, I says, very well, ’e says ; 
Gow ! and I — — ” 

44 Miss, dear ! Trailin’ a twig on your skirt ! Yer 
sweetheart’s thinkin’ of you ! ” 

46 ’Ilder ! ” 

44 ’Ere, young Dais! You’ve got a cheek, to »” 

44 Beller ! Beller ! ” 

Then, in a very different sort of dialect 

44 Has anyone seen Miss Newnham? Ah, Hypatia ; 
there you are. . . . Impossible, in this melee. . . . But 
of course I shall come to the Meeting afterwards, if 


150 


THE HEN-PARTY 


only I can hale these young barbarians back to their 

native wilds of Kentish Town in time ” 

“ Whey-ah is Eleanor Urquhart? Yes, I know! she 
sent some sort of a myrmidon of hers, a typist-individual, 
I think, to ” 

Rosamond primmed her mouth. She did not greatly 
care for those specially-looked-up-to friends of Elea- 
nor’s who had degrees after their names and who wore 
hand-wrought silver Suffr age-brooches and who made 
little “ cultured ” jokes about the girls. . . . 

The enjoying girls themselves were all right. So 
were their other guardians. Those Hospital Nurses, for 
instance, cheery and crisp and trim in the mauve-and- 
white uniform that one of them had not taken off, as 
she smilingly admitted, for the last thirty-six hours — 

coming straight on, off duty 

“ Wouldn’t you like a little more to eat, Nurse ” 

“ My dear, I’d like a little less, if possible ! ” 

They were dears, Rosamond thought. So were the 
Sisters of Mercy, who, for all their black robes and 
veils and twisted girdles, were the gayest of the gay; 
their white-linen-bound faces bright as their own 
silver crosses, free from all care that was not for 
others. 

“Sister! Have you had anything yourself? You 
haven’t, I know,” said Rosamond Fayre. “ I’ll 

send ” She turned — to meet the usual resigned and 

following figure. “Oh, Mr. Urquhart! Would you 


THE HEN-PARTY 


151 


mind going up to the house and making them bring 
some fresh tea here — a little tray ” 

It was young Urquhart himself who brought that 
little tray. He carried it, without the loss of a drop, 
over the crowded lawn, to the garden-seat under the 
trees, to that Sister-in-Charge. 

But this did not check him for long from this obvi- 
ously deliberate and idiotic plan of dogging the foot- 
steps of Miss Urquhart’s second-in-command. 

Surely, surely he could see for himself what to do? 
He could choose which girls to show round the place 
(his own place) on his own initiative, couldn’t he? 

Apparently not ! 

Rosamond, shepherding a Guild of Girl Needle- 
workers past the walled gardens to the other lawn where 
the tuning-up of three fiddles and a ’cello grew louder 
as they approached, found that Mr. Ted Urquhart was 
practically upon her heels once more. 

Once more, she supposed, he’d bring out that 
monotonous, restrained, but temper-struck 44 What can 
I do for you now? ” 

No! 

For at the further side of the lawn from the white 
and blue wooden stand where the blue-and-white-clad 
Ladies’ Orchestra were tuning up she perceived at last 
Mr. Ted Urquhart’s fiancee. 

Eleanor, wearing her most 44 responsible ’’-looking 
costume of stone-grey, and too absorbed to notice her 


152 


THE HEN-PARTY 


"fiance's approach, was pacing that further path beside 
an enlightened-looking young woman in pince-nez and 
brown patterned Liberty delaine, who conversed in 

earnest gasps, something about 

“Such a futile Committee, though! Narrow-minded 
Bishops ! Silly old retired militarist Colonels ! . . . 
What can you expect, my dear Miss Urquhart, from 
imbecile survivals of that type? . . . How can they 
hope to realise that We of To-day are not, not as 
women were forced to be in our grandmothers’ time? 
... As I say, the New Spirit has percolated even to 
the strata of these poor Guild-girls here ! . . . Even 
they read Wells and Galsworthy ! even they are growing 
to probe into things for themselves ! To learn to live 

with their Brains instead of merely ” 

Here, as if in soft denial of all she had been saying, 
the band broke into the alluring drawl of an old- 
fashioned waltz-tune, played rather slowly. 

Three bars of the unspoilable Eton Boating Song 
filled the lawn with girls in smoothly revolving couples. 
They waltzed ; their young bodies turning as one, their 
cheaply-shod feet scarcely leaving the turf, their faces 
set, grave and happy and hypnotised by the rhythm of 
music and movement. . . . 

It was all strikingly unlike that Saturnalian gambol 
that old Mr. Urquhart had prophesied ! 

These girlish toilers, set free for one summer after- 
noon from sweltering labour in pickle-factory and hand- 


THE HEN-PARTY 


153 


laundry and underground eating-house — dressed in 
cheap finery — of 44 pink and Saxe and sky and helio ” 
— for which they would pay by a shilling at a time, 
danced on the grass with a stateliness lost to the ball- 
rooms of their rulers. They danced, slum-bred and 
born into drudgery as they were; and they made of 
Byron’s waltz a measure as decorous as the Pavane 
itself. 

44 Row — Row to-gether,” hummed Urquhart, as the 
insistent melody that will surely live when the last echo 
of tango and rag-time has died away, throbbed in his 
blood and set his foot tapping in time upon the turf. 
Rosamond, without turning her head, realised that this 
young man was yearning, as she yearned, to dance. He 
raised his voice a little. 

44 1 say, Eleanor ! D’you care to — — ” 

Eleanor, as Rosamond to her amusement noticed, did 
not hear the voice of the young man at her elbow. 

He spoke again. 

44 1 say, Eleanor. It’s rather jolly. Come and have 
a turn, won’t you? ” 

Eleanor Urquhart looked round absently at last. 

44 Er — Oh, you want to dance, Ted? Do you very 
much mind if I don’t ? ” said the engaged girl. 44 1 have 
so much to ask my friend, Miss Fabian. I shan’t get 
her to myself again, I know. . . . Dance with somebody 
else. Miss Fayre will dance with you, I’m sure, if you 
ask her. Rosamond dear,” she turned to her secretary 


15 4 


THE HEN-PARTY 


with that little “ settling ” voice of hers. 44 You’ll dance 
with Mr. Urquhart, won’t you?” 

Rosamond Fayre became conscious of an unexpected 
thrill of sudden and warm and young and undeniable 
delight. . . . 

She adored dancing. 

The Eton Boat Song remained her favourite waltz. 

An eye used to summing up partners at a glance told 
her that this lithe-limbed engineer-man of Eleanor’s 
would dance as well as he fetched-and-carried or helped 
to pitch refreshment tents. Yes ! By the way he moved 
you could see that he belonged to those ideal and flaw- 
less partners of whom every woman can recall perhaps 
six during the whole of her dancing-days; forgetting 
names and faces but remembering always 44 that gorgeous 
waltz I had with that man at the So-and-so dance” 

He took a quick, eager step forward ; put out a long 
arm, muttered a hasty 44 Oh, may I ” 

And at that moment Rosamond Fayre herself could 
not have explained why she said — what she did say. 

Which was : 44 Oh ! Do you mind if I don’t dance 
either? Waltzing always makes me so — so giddy. I’ll 
find you a good partner instead, though, Mr. Urqu- 
hart.” 

She turned to a couple who had just fallen aside out 
of the throng. A girl in a long black velvet coat was 
panting under a black fur stole and gasping huskily, 


THE HEN-PARTY 


155 


" ’Ere ! ’Arf-time, Pan ! ” to the other girl, who wore 
the most ambitious gown to be seen at Urquhart’s Court 
that day. Satin of the colour of fruit- juice poured over 
a silver spoon set off her opulent figure, and she turned 
a laughing, boldly-handsome face under a halo of frilled 
and crimson tulle as Miss Fayre called 44 Pansy ! 99 

Another moment and Ted Urquhart found himself 
twirled into that turning, turning throng, his arm about 
the crimson-satin-swathed waist of his old acquaintance 
the Principal Boy. 

“Well! Fancy meeting Mister You! Brings back 
the dear old days, don’t it?” beamed the resplendent 
and perfumed Pansy as they swung into step. “ Quite 
a treat for me not having to dance gentleman for once ! 
I s’pose you’re such a rarity this afternoon, you’ve got 
to be handed round — like the other ices, eh? Thought 
I wasn’t mistaken on the front just now. I said to 
young Annie, 4 See who that is playing comic butler with 
the little tray?’ (Oh, come on, High-Jinkski, you can 
Bos’!) 4 He’s too proud to look our way,’ I said. 
4 Still, if it isn’t him all right ! It’s Miss Fayre’s boy,’ 
I said ” 

44 Please ! Please don’t say it,” her partner cut her 
short, in a tone that made her stare quickly up into his 
set, sun-burnt face. 44 Er — There’s been a mistake here, 
Miss Pansy. You don’t know my name, I think ” 

44 4 Think ’ is good ! ” laughed the Principal Boy, her 
brown eyes gleaming, evidently with a memory of that 


156 THE HEN-PARTY 

sparring-match a propos of names over the Hostel tea- 
table in France. 

But her partner finished curtly. “ My name is 
Urquhart.” 

“ Urq — — Why ! Fancy ! I never knew our Miss 
Urquhart had got a brother? ” 

“ She hasn’t. I’m not. I am ” 

It seemed to stick in his throat. He could not say 
it. He said, “ I am her cousin.” 

“ Brother to the other cousin? ” enquired Pansy in- 
terestedly. “ Brother to the one Miss Urquhart’s goin’ 
to marry ? ” 

So he had to say it, after all. 

“I am engaged to be married to Miss Urquhart.” 

“What?” cried the Principal Boy very sharply. 
“ Go on?” 

She fell out of step, bumped against the next couple, 
^recovered herself with a short “ Go where you’re 
lookin’ ! ” She did not speak again until they had 
waltzed twice round the lawn, from which Miss Fayre 
had vanished now. 

Then, still waltzing, Pansy asked steadily, “ Straight? 
It’s true? ” 

“ Yes.” 

“ Then, if it’s not a rude question, what’s the meaning 
of ” 

“ There is no 4 meaning,’ ” said Ted Urquhart dis- 
tinctly, as the sky-blue-jacketed First Violin, erect in 


THE HEN-PARTY 


157 


the middle of her platform, tapped her bow against her 
music-stand as a signal. The tune was allowed to lan- 
guish to its close. “ Thank you, so much,” said Urqu- 
hart. “ It has been — er — delightful seeing you again 
like this. May I bring you some lemonade? ” 

“ All right, if there’s nothing to drink,” murmured 
the Pantomime Boy, absently. Her face was a be- 
wildered blank as her partner strode off down the path 
towards the refreshment tent. 

And to herself she muttered, “ Now, wotfs all 
this ? ” 

She could not be expected to guess that “ all this ” 
meant a very special form of Purgatory for the only 
man present at this afternoon’s hen-party. 

Tossed about like a shuttle-cock between the girl he 
was pledged to marry and the other girl who — who 
grudged him one glance, dash it, one turn of a waltz! 
“ Miss Fayre’s boy,” forsooth — a sort of District Mes- 
senger Boy, that was how she treated him ! Sent him 
off airily here, there, and everywhere 

Anywhere, except where he’d meant to stay ; namely, 
near her! 

Well, at all events this infernal party would soon be 
over, Urquhart reflected as he finished handing round 
the last of the lemonade. Nearly half-past five. He 
was surely at an end of his trials for to-day at least? 

No! 


158 


THE HEN-PARTY 


Two more trials were in store for him. 

The first of these announced itself in an alien Voice 
which smote upon Urquhart’s ear from behind one of 
the clipped box hedges. A Voice that emitted squib- 
like cries of “ Now, isn’t this just Old Eng — land? Say, 
Amanda! Isn’t this just the most typical yet? ” And 
then there came into sight Miss Fayre escorting two 
ladies in long coats and small veiled hats, carrying 
binoculars and guide-books. Hurriedly Rosamond ex- 
plained that these ladies wished to be taken over Urqu- 
hart’s Court. They had heard that it was “ an ex- 
hibition-place ” — which by the way it wasn’t. But Ted 
Urquhart found himself adding to the many odd jobs 
of the afternoon that of taking these American tourists 
over his domain; and of listening to their unsolicited 
testimonials upon those charming; old-world ; delightful ; 
fas’natingly delicious; harmonious-looking house and 
gardens ! 

For after each adjective the Voice seemed to pause for 
a semi-colon of appreciation. It dwelt upon that beai^ 
tiful ; priceless ; exquisite Romney portrait of “ Mrs. 
Edward Urquhart,” and at the priest’s hole it vocif- 
erated, “ Say, Amanda ! doesn’t the mere sight of this 
carry us way, way, way back into the days of Cram- 
well? ” 

Young Urquhart wished it could. . . . 

Why did this type of American insist upon leaving 
nothing, nothing unsaid? 


THE HEN-PARTY 


159 


“ These women were very different from that Dresden 
china figurine of an American bride he’d met over in 
France, that friendly little lady who — but he mustn’t 
think of what she'd said. . . . 

He turned his thoughts resolutely away, tried to think 
of the awful English tourists, in America, who must give 
the more charming American class an appalling idea of 
what our own nation is really like. 

These Americans here were their revenge for it all! 
This dreadful “Amanda ” and her companion! 

In the hall at the end of the tour, Miss Fayre, who 
was fetching a mislaid wrap for one of the University 
Settlement workers, came in for a share of the thanks 
poured upon the wretched and fidgeting host. The 
Lady with the Voice grasped both the secretary-girl’s 
hands and held them as she announced that she just 
couldn’t go until she’d told this beautiful; charming; 
graceful; tender; womanly; delightful-looking young 
English lady the impression she’d made upon two 
strangers that day. 

“ Soon as we saw you,” effused the Voice, “ in that 
simple; fas’nating white gown on the green lawn! with 
the glorious; genuine; Anglo-Saxon fair hair! And 
that lovely; reel; milk-and-peach blow; English com- 
plexion ! Like a young Queen, I guess ! Among all your 
humble guests ! I said, 4 Why ! If she! Isn’t the very 
unmistakable; absolute Image and Ideal of what the 
beautiful young mistress of an old English country- 


160 THE HEN-PARTY 

house ought! To be!' I tell you, my dear young 
lady ” 

“Oh! Please don’t!” gasped Miss Urquhart’s paid 
secretary, standing beside Miss Urquhart’s fiance, as if 
they were both hypnotised by these relentless compli- 
ments. 

That Voice went on to thank her, Rosamond Fayre, 
for providing strangers with a memory that they guessed 
they would never; never forget ! The memory of a per- 
fect; wonderful; Picture that they reckoned couldn’t 
be beaten by all those miles and miles of galleries they’d 
done in Europe ! It was a pity that Mr. Sargent didn’t 
take and paint it right there ! — “ the old hall with the 
oak-beams and the carving, and you, my dear, in the 
doorway of your adorable ; English home ! standing be- 
side this fine ; tall ; manly ; real English-looking ; devoted 
young husband of yours ” 

Here Mr. Ted Urquhart literally turned tail and fled. 
Rosamond Fayre, crimson to the roots of her admired 
hair, saw his white-clad figure speed helter-skelter down 
the Terrace steps, thread the maze of colour on the lawn, 
and plunge into the green depths of the lime-tree Avenue. 
Every movement, she fancied, conveyed the young man’s 
last word : 

“ I won’t stand any more. All these cackling women ! 
This finishes it ! Here’s where I knock off ! ” 

It was, indeed, a fairly accurate version of young 
Urquhart’s feelings as he paused on the Avenue at 


THE HEN-PARTY 161 

last, lighted up a pipe, and told himself that he’d give 
a fiver to have a man to talk to. 

Even as he tossed the match into the hedge he saw 
the figure of a man in grey, appearing round the bend 
of the drive, who walked briskly towards him. 

44 Good-afternoon ! ” began this stranger, who seemed 
very young, with a fresh-coloured pleasant face, blonde 
as a biscuit. 46 This is Urquhart’s Court, isn’t it? ” 

44 Yes,” said Ted, welcomingly. 44 Come up to the 
house, will you? I’m afraid you may have to wait a 
bit if you’ve come to see my Uncle. My name’s Urqu- 
hart.” 

44 My name’s Bray; Cecil Bray,” the younger man 
introduced himself. 

Then he introduced the second of those two last trials 
that had been in store for Mr. Ted Urquhart that 
afternoon. 

For this pleasant-voiced, very decent-seeming sort of 
young fellow called Bray added, 44 I’m afraid your uncle 
doesn’t know me ; I’ve come, as a matter of fact, to see 
Miss Fayre.” 


CHAPTER XII 


THE SOUND OF A KISS 

Rosamond Fayre told herself that it was just like 
Cecil Bray to carry out his written intention to come 
and look her up at Urquhart’s Court, on the very 
afternoon of that hen-party. 

Poor dear boy! He simply couldn’t have chosen a 
worse time for his visit ! 

To begin with, he must needs make his appearance in 
the middle of that vortex of getting the assorted flocks 
of girls off in the brakes that were to carry them, laugh- 
ing, chattering and calling like homing rooks, to the 
station and the London-bound special train. 

Then it was such an age before Rosamond could find 
and disentangle Eleanor and introduce this old friend 
of her brother’s to her employer. 

And then Eleanor, instead of doing it herself, must 
turn to her dear Ted (who’d come up with the other 
man) to ask him to ask Mr. Bray to stay to dinner. 

Dinner, too, seemed a disorganised, spiritless, after- 
the-party sort of meal! 

Nobody dressed. Everybody was tired, dull with 
reaction. The whole air still seemed a-twitter with the 
treble clamour of the lately-departed hen-party. No- 
162 


THE SOUND OF A KISS 


163 


body appeared to wish to talk; with the exception of 
old Mr. Urquhart, who had returned from his motor- 
expedition in what was for him quite a sociable mood. 

He discovered that he had been up at Magdalen with 
this young Mr. Bray’s father — no, grandfather; indeed, 
he had corresponded with him for several years after- 
wards, on the subject of some manuscripts that had 
been found appertaining to some marriage settlements 
of a Dame Urquhart who had married a de Braye or 
Braie in the reign of. . . . 

Presently he was saying that there would scarcely 
be time to go into all those very interesting old letters 
in just one evening. The best plan would be for his 
young friend, Mr. Bray, to stay the night — to stay the 
week-end, if he would, at the Court — would it not? 

“Awfully kind of you, Sir,” murmured the young 
man fervently. His china-blue eyes lighted up. Evi- 
dently he asked for nothing better than to stay the 
week-end. He glanced round the oval table expecting 
the conventional “ Yes, do,” and “ That would be very 
nice,” from the rest of the party. 

The rest of the party remained almost forbiddingly 
mute. 

Poor Cecil Bray, a sensitive youth, felt thereby obliged 
to decline the invitation with a rueful “ But I’m awfully 
sorry, I’m afraid I really have to get back to-night,” 
without knowing why no one but the old gentleman had 
made any attempt to keep him. 


164 * 


THE SOUND OF A KISS 


The reason was 

As far as Eleanor was concerned, she hardly heard 
what was going on at the table. Her striving, earnest 
little mind was still with the party of the afternoon. 
Had it been a success? Had no one been offended or 
overlooked? Would it have been better to have had 
Votes of Thanks proposed to those University Group 
Ladies? Besides these problems, there was another more 
disquieting memory of the afternoon. Something Miss 
Fabian had just been beginning to tell Eleanor about 
a friend of hers, a lady rent-collector in Brixton. This 
friend seemed to know 44 something 55 about one of Miss 
Urquhart’s protegees, something 44 not very creditable ” 
about the theatrical girl, Pansy Vansittart. About 
Pansy? A Club girl who had enjoyed the special privi- 
lege of being one of those who were taken into Eleanor’s 
Normandy Hostel? What could this be? Someone had 
called Miss Fabian away before she said more. But 
she had promised to make enquiries of that friend, to 
write to Miss Urquhart later. What could it be? pon- 
dered Eleanor uneasily. No wonder her attention had 
wandered leagues away from this young man who’d come 
to call on Rosamond ! 

As for Rosamond — Well! She couldn’t press Cecil 
Bray to stay at Urquhart’s Court. 

It wasn’t her house. 

It was the house of Eleanor’s -fiance . 

Rosamond was only one of the staff! 


THE SOUND OF A KISS 


165 


Besides, even had it been otherwise, he didn’t want 
Cecil there. She knew what would happen if he stayed 
for a week-end where she was. He’d promised not to 
“ bother ” her again. But she knew what became of 
that sort of promise made by that sort of young man. 
Of course he’d propose again. She saw every symptom 
of it threatening in every line of his fair, fifth-form-room 
face. She could prophesy, verbatim, the old familiar, 
futile, ever-recurring dialogue between man and maid 
that must presently ensue. 

He (gabbling with earnestness) : 44 I would do any- 
thing, Miss Fayre, anything to make you happy. Can’t 
you try and ” 

She: 44 I am most frightfully sorry, but it’s no good. 
No man can 4 make ’ a woman happy. Either she is 
happy with him or she isn’t. And I know I couldn’t 
be with you. Not in that way, Cecil.” 

He (clearing his throat for a fresh start): 44 You 
don’t care for me yet, I know. But look here, give me 
a chance, just a chance! If you saw more of me you’d 
grow to care ” 

She (miserably) : 44 No, no. People may 4 grow ’ to 
like other people. But nobody ever, ever yet 4 grew ’ to 
love anybody. . . . Please, please don’t go on like this. 
. . . I’m so sorry. I like you so. Very well then, I 
won’t say I feel like your sister. . . . But there are 
other girls ” 


166 


THE SOUND OF A KISS 


He (gruffly) : “ Not for me ! ” 

She (strenuously persuasive): “ If you only knew, 
one girl is much the same as another. Some are prettier. 
But otherwise they don’t vary. Honestly ! It’s you 
men who vary so ” 

And so on. Again Rosamond repeated to herself 
ruefully and gently what she was fated to be saying 
presently aloud : “ Oh, Cecil ! I am so sorry ! ” 

Even if she were the mistress of the Court, she would 
not ask Cecil Bray to stay. 

As for the master of that Court, well ! He was very 
well aware that this guest opposite couldn’t take his 
eyes from the girl he’d come to see. He, Ted Urquhart, 
could give a very good guess at what had brought the 
young beggar down. And he wasn’t going to have 
him staying under his roof for one moment longer than 
he could help. The sooner he packed off, out of the 
place, the better. 

There was a jolly good train up to town at eight- 
forty. . . . 

But it struck eight as they finished dinner ; and con- 
found him, the young beggar made no sign of packing 
off. He would have to be put up with, then, until the 
last train that night. 

Not longer ! 

In the drawing-room, Eleanor looked up over the 


THE SOUND OF A KISS 


167 


coffee-cups, murmured to her father that she must 
see him about something, drew him away into the little 
morning-room, and shut the door. 

Ted Urquhart, left with the other two, knew what 
Eleanor meant. She meant to rescue this Mr. Bray 
from old Mr. Urquhart’s conversational clutches. After 
all, it was Rosamond he’d come down to see. He must 
be allowed a little talk with her. 

For a second Urquhart found himself hesitating. 

Must he go? 

Well, he could hardly stay! 

He was the host. 

Common politeness .... Yes ! He’d have to go. 

He’d have to leave the coast clear for this young 
cub with that unfair advantage of being an old ac- 
quaintance. He’d go. 

A nice situation for any man. Forced, in his own 
house, to take himself off while another man proposed, 
as likely as not, to 

The girl who wasn’t supposed to be anything at all 
to the master of the house. 

That was the maddening part of it. 

Raging silently, Urquhart went. 

And he met the only girl whose doings Ted Urquhart 
had any right to resent or arrange, in the hall. 

Eleanor’s small face — sallow with tiredness — was 
turned up to his in the ivy-softened frame of the door- 
way, just where that other girl — the secretary-girl in 


168 


THE SOUND OF A KISS 


whom he hadn’t any right — had stood this afternoon, 
blushing like a rose to hear that ironic mistake blared 
abroad by that American lady with the voice. 

“ Oh, Ted ” 

“ Hullo, Eleanor, I haven’t had a word with you all 
day,” said her fiance, outwardly pleasantly civil, in- 
wardly savage because he had no valid right to feel 
savage at all. 

“ Oh, Ted, I was just going to ask you if you’d mind 
if I didn’t come out for my little walk with you to-night. 
There’s something I do so want to finish,” said the 
engaged girl. “ I am never really happy unless I can 
check all the caterers’ accounts the very day they ” 

“ Oh, all right,” agreed her betrothed, quickly. “ Not 
if you’ve anything more important to do.” 

More important! Accounts, visitors, anything at 
Urquhart’s Court was reckoned of more importance 
than Ted Urquhart himself to-night, thought the young 
man bitterly as he strode out. 

Precious little consideration he got from either of 
these girls ! 

A rum idea of the position of an engaged girl his 
cousin seemed to have! Pretty unsatisfactory for him, 
if he’d happened to be madly in love with her. And 
even if he wasn’t in love with her, he was engaged to 
her. Yes. A curious notion she had of playing the 
game. She treated her lawful fiance a good deal more 
off-handedly than that other young fellow was treated. 


THE SOUND OF A KISS 


169 


Young Bray, now, was to have a solid couple of hours 
tete-a-tete and the whole drawing-room to himself with 
the girl — the other girl. . . . 

Or they’d go out for a stroll together, thought Urqu- 
hart angrily, as his long legs carried him over the 
wide and empty lawn in the golden, slowly-gathering 
dusk. He clenched his brown hands in his jacket- 
pocket as he pictured that other fellow picking up a 
wrap out of the hall, putting it, reverently as he might 

have put his own arm, about the supple shoulders of 

“ My girl,” exclaimed Ted Urquhart aloud and violently 
to the lime-trees. “ My girl ” 

The sound of his own voice and the preposterous thing 
it said checked him. 

More slowly he struck into the Avenue. He walked 
along between those late-blossoming lime-trees with their 
scent of thyme-and-white-currants-mixed. And as he 
walked, he thought, seriously and deliberately, over the 
whole complicated situation that had just condensed 
itself into two words. 

Two simple words that may be said to sum up the 
problem of life so often, and to so many a worried-to- 
death young man! 

His girl. . . . 

It was now perfectly clear to Ted Urquhart that he 
could never think of Eleanor’s secretary as anything 
else. No getting out of it. Every atom of him had 
recognised her, from the first moment that he’d come 


170 


THE SOUND OF A KISS 


upon her, swinging along by the waters’ edge in France 
with the happy sea-wind making free with that hair of 
hers. 

His! 

Yes; he’d recognised his love, his mate. He’d tell 
her 

But stop. He’d no right to tell her anything of the 
sort while he was still pledged to marry somebody else. 

He lighted his pipe ; then strode on smoking, thinking 
doggedly over a problem that seems each time too 
ghastly to be hackneyed. 

This couldn’t go on. Not this Hades of a life in the 
same house with the wrong girl to whom he was bound, 
while the right girl was dangled incessantly before his 
tantalised eyes. He couldn’t stand another day of it. 
No! 

Well, there were two ways of putting a stop to it. 

One — Marry Eleanor and clear out. 

Two — Break off his engagement with the wrong girl. 

That was the dickens ! 

That was about the most unpleasant job a man is 
ever called upon to face. Lord, how it would make him 
wish himself back in the Andes ; under ’em ! 

Messing up a girl’s life 

Still, wasn’t it far, far more of a mess if, instead 
of breaking with, a man married the wrong girl? Com- 
mon sense said yes. Common sense said it was making 
the mistake of a lifetime, and with one’s eyes open. 


THE SOUND OF A KISS 


171 


Involving two people . . . perhaps three . . . some- 
times four ! Ruining all chance of future happiness, just 
to save a present wrench. Just because one felt a cur 
not to go on. 

Breaking it off was the only possible solution. Yes! 
Even after a year. Even at the eleventh hour. That 
must be done. It remained 44 the dickens,” all the 
same. . . . 

Here the brooding Ted came to the wrought-iron 
lodge-gates. He pushed them aside. 

The very Deuce and All! 

He went on down the lane between tall hedges, where 
coloured flowers were darkening to black blots while 
white blossoms were gleaming whiter in the gradual 
dusk. 

Eleanor. She was the difficulty. Of his own making ! 

Yes, he’d got himself into it. Ass ! Ass that he’d 
been ! 

Now he’d got to get himself out — and to feel, as well 
as feeling an ass, a cad about it all. . . . 

Here a gap in the hedge showed a cornfield where 
men, evidently mistrusting the holding-up of the dry 
weather, were still working, late as it was, carting the 
early-ripened sheaves. 

Ted Urquhart leant over the gate, watching mechan- 
ically the big, galleon-like shape of the waggon against 
the open, lilac sky, the steady movements of the men 
in the fading light. At another time he would have 


THE SOUND OF A KISS 


172 

ofFed with his coat, vaulted that gate into the field, 
and offered to lend a hand. This evening he’d something 
else to do. 

He’d got to consider, definitely, how he was going to 
put it to Eleanor. 

To tell her he’d thought better of marrying her — 
after this whole year of having it peacefully and satis- 
factorily settled that he was going to do so. 

What on earth would she say? She’d have every 
right to say she thought he’d behaved — most extraor- 
dinarily. (He had.) Would she ask, “Is it that you 
are disappointed in me ? ” 

What could a chap say to that? 

He wasn’t “ disappointed.” That didn’t even enter 
into it at all. 

Supposing she said, “ Have you met somebody else, 
then?” 

Whew ! 

The shaded lane behind him was growing darker, 
darker. But over the cornfield in front of him the 
moon was slowly rising, the bright, coppery, shield of 
a full moon that had looked a mere silver trifle to 
ornament a girl’s gold hair on the evening of the first 
day that he’d met 

Never mind that yet. Eleanor. 

Supposing she said, “ If there’s somebody else, why 
didn’t you write and tell me? You have been here for 
days. Why didn’t you tell me directly you came? ” 


THE SOUND OF A KISS 


173 


Well, why hadn’t he? He wished to Heaven he had, 
instead of procrastinating to make sure of — what he’d 
been as certain of as if it had been going on from the 

ginning of all things. 

Supposing Eleanor went on, “ Who is it? ” 

Or, “ Do I know her? ” 

Would he have to set forth the whole embarrassing 
story to the poor little soul? Inflict upon her some- 
thing that would offend and wound the heart of any 
girl alive, whether or not she had ever cared passion- 
ately for the wretched man who was practically explain- 
ing to her that she (whom he’d found excellent reasons 
for asking to become his wife) was now considered 
inadequate, shoved out of existence in his mind by one 
glance from — No ! Not even from, but at the girl she 
employed ! 

And then, what about that arrangement about the 
Court? 

Damn that old house, thought the young owner of it. 
He was in a mood to contemplate rushing up to his 
lawyers’ on Monday morning about drawing up a deed- 
of-gift to his Uncle. Couldn’t he hand it over bodily 
like that? Or refuse to take anything but a quit-rent 
of say a basket of Kentish cherries or a pink rose at 
Midsummer . . . anything! 

He knew he’d never live in the place himself. These 
last few infernal days had about fed him up with a 
peaceful — as they called it — English country-life. Let 


174 


THE SOUND OF A KISS 


Eleanor and the old man stay on. And even if they 
insisted that now they’d have to turn out, it needn’t come 
to that. That part of it could be allowed to drift until 
something happened. Or, as is more frequent in such 
a programme, until nothing happened. He, Ted, would 
clear. He’d sink some other property and buy a steam- 
yacht. Then he’d be off with his wife to 

H’m. Here he was thinking of her as his wife now, 
this girl whose hand he had never touched, and to whom 
he hadn’t, when he came to examine it, actually said a 
word of anything but the merest commonplaces. 

What did words matter — in a miracle? 

He’d take the shortest cut. She’d got to have him. 

Surely she had the sense to see that she was made 
for him? 

She might have the sense ; but, Urquhart thought with 
a memory of that demure stare of hers, that meek, 
pretty, mocking voice, she might not choose to admit 
it all at once. 

He’d make her. 

However, all that was for afterwards. . . . 

With a jerk he took his arms from the gate, turned 
his back on the cornfield in the moonlight, and 
began to make bis way back towards the lodge — and 
Eleanor. 

For now his mind was made up. To break off his 
idiotic “ engagement ” first. Then try his luck with 
. . . his own girl. 


THE SOUND OF A KISS 


175 


He’d tell Eleanor, he decided, to-night. He’d go 
in and get that perfectly rotten interview over as soon 
as possible. 

He’d trust to luck and the first words — remorseful 
but unmistakable — that came into his head when he 
stood before her. 

It was quite dark under the lime-trees now. Later 
than he’d thought. Still, Eleanor would be in the little 
office where she sometimes sat balancing books after 
she’d come in from the every-evening stroll which she 
was now accustomed to take with her j fiance. . . . 

Yesterday had meant the last of those flavourless 
walks, then. There was a flicker of comfort in the 
thought. Still there was the Old Harry to pay for it ! 

Through the darkness Urquhart heard the stable- 
clock slowly striking ten. 

That Bray boy — he was only a youngster, after all ! 
— would probably have gone, thought Urquhart, hurry- 
ing doggedly along to his perfectly rotten interview ; to 
the Old Harry. Yes: that lad would be off by this 
time. . . . 

The sounds of steps and voices, approaching on the 
lawn on the other side of the lime-trees, told Urquhart 
that he was wrong. The Bray boy was only going now. 
He was making his way down to the drive by the short- 
cut across the lawn. And “ She ” was seeing him off. 

That meant nothing, of course. But — — 

There followed something that suddenly held up Ted 


176 


THE SOUND OF A KISS 


Urquhart in his stride just as if a barbed barricade 
had crashed down across bis path. 

In that blankly horrible moment of revelation he 
could not move. 

For without premeditation or warning he caught the 
sound of Miss Fayre’s voice, which was speaking to 
young Bray in a tone that Urquhart, who thought he 
knew by heart every one of its pretty mocking cadences, 
had never heard. No. He had not been privileged 
to hear that note in the voice that seemed to utter a 
whole volume of gentle wistful tenderness in just two 
words. Yes ; for the second time that evening a couple 
of words gave the whole of a situation. This time they 
were these: — 

“Oh, Cecil!” 

That alone was enough to smash a dream ! 

And then worse followed. Another, an unmistakable 
sound that struck a sledge-hammer blow full on the 
heart of the young man who heard it. Yet, such a soft 
little whisper of a sound ; not louder than the chirp of 
a sleepy thrush on the bough above him. . . . This 
sound, though, was not to be confused with the noise 
that might be made by any bird, or by any rustling of 
the lime-branches that separated young Urquhart from 
those two standing there in the darkness. There are 
not two sounds like it. 

It was the sound of a kiss. 


CHAPTER XIII 


A WHITE NIGHT 

66 Got a sweetheart already, has she,” thought Ted 
Urquhart grimly. 

It was his first clear thought as he jerked himself at 
last out of the stupor into which he’d been plunged by 
a blow dealt in the dark. 

Slowly and heavily he walked up the rest of that 
darkened scented corridor of an avenue into the lighted 
hall of his house. 

And there slipped into the hall behind him the girl 
who was not his. The girl who’d murmured, 66 Oh, 
Cecil,” in a tone as soft as the sound of that good-bye 
kiss which had been overheard by another man. 

Ted Urquhart stood aside for her to pass. A black 
transparent scarf that she’d put on trailed away from 
her white dress. He picked it up and handed it to her. 

“ Oh, thanks,” she said a little wearily, as she passed 
upstairs. “ Good-night ! ” 

“ Good-night.” 

He had not meant to look at her. But for one instant 
his eyes strayed to her face — not lighted up by any 
mischief now. That mouth of hers was grave. And 
was it a wet gleam on her eye-lashes? — Yes. 

177 


178 


A WHITE NIGHT 


Of course. 

She’d been crying because that young — that young 
Bray had had to go. “ Oh, Cecil,” she’d sighed. He 
called her “ Miss Fay re,” Urquhart had noticed, before 
people. For some reason or other it was not announced 
yet. But they were sweethearts all right. 

That soft exclamation, that other soft sound, were no 
further business of Ted Urquhart’s. For a moment he 
stood, however, torturing himself with the remembrance 
of them, and gripping the balustrade on which his hand 
rested. 

Then he let it go with a little jerk. 

Yes. That ended it. Very well. 

It was a very tight-lipped young man who took his 
peg of whisky rather brown, Mr. Beeton noticed, before 
preparing to go off early to his room. 

“ I beg your pardon, sir, I think you overlooked 
this,” said the butler. “ This letter came for you by 
the last post, sir.” 

Ted Urquhart took that letter upstairs with him. 

In his room he glanced at it. A thin foreign envelope, 
the address of the Court scrawled over that of his Camp. 
It had been forwarded from South America. Then he 
saw, above the hasty re-direction, his name in a clear 
pretty writing he knew very well. 

Eleanor’s. This was a letter of hers that had reached 
the Camp just after he’d left it, and it had been sent 
on to follow him here. It must be weeks old by now. 


A WHITE NIGHT 


179 


And he might expect now to have these re-directed 
letters from her turning up every week, for she would 
have written her duty-letter to her fiance for three mail- 
days in succession, not knowing that even as she wrote 
he was already on his way home to take her by sur- 
prise. 

A pretty collection of surprises it had turned out 
to be from the first moment that he’d seen, not Eleanor, 
but her lovely Second-in-command 

“Here! None of that.” Urquhart peremptorily 
called off his own thoughts as if they’d been straying 
spaniels. He’d got, somehow or other, to keep his mind 
off that savagely rankling memory of what he’d just 
heard in the lime-walk. “ Better read the letter.” 

He tore it open. He set it down before him on the 
dressing-table, beginning listlessly enough to read it 
while he undressed. 

He began listlessly. But presently he lifted his head 
with a little movement that was reflected in the Sheraton 
mirror; he stood for a moment alert, a graceful, wide- 
shouldered figure of a man in shirt-sleeves, his braces 
dangling about his narrow loins, while he read again. 

“ My dear Ted 

“ Of course I am not offended that your plans 
do not allow you to come over this year to see me, 
I quite understand. I am such a busy person 
Myself ” 


180 


A WHITE NIGHT 


Here followed the catalogue of Miss Urquhart’s ac- 
tivities for the summer. Her fiance could imagine the 
little brown head conscientiously writing them all down ; 
the dusky head bent over the paper. Then came the 
phrases which — he didn’t know why — had arrested 
him. 

“ In fact, I must break off now to attend to the Head 
of one of my Clubs. (This sounds rather like golf, 
doesn’t it? She might quite well be described as ‘ The 
Driver ’ too !)” 

Ted Urquhart’s eyes left the letter and turned to- 
wards the closed white door of his room almost as though 
he thought he had heard a call. Yet there had been 
no sound. Then they returned to that last paragraph. 
Then he found himself looking away again, and staring, 
without any reason, at the long serried row of his boots 
— foot-gear of every make and material and several 
nationalities. What was there about this part of the 
letter that had given him a sense of being puzzled over 
something? He read it again. 

Then it dawned upon him. 

He thought, “ How unlike Eleanor to write that ! ” 

A couple of hours later the young man, tossing and 
turning between his blankets in the dark, clutched at 
that thought again. He would have clutched at any 
idea that would distract him even for a moment from 


A WHITE NIGHT 


181 


the black jealousy and despair caused by that memory 

of a man’s name murmured in a girl’s voice 

“ Oh, Cecil ! ” 

— and the other sound . . . the other death-knell to 
his hope. . . . This brooding would not do. He fixed 
his mind resolutely on that letter of Eleanor’s. 

Yes, by Jove. How oddly unlike Eleanor that last 
paragraph had read ! 

He simply couldn’t imagine Eleanor writing so 
primly, so characteristically up to that point, and then 
“ letting herself go ” in a sentence that seemed almost 
to be laughing at her own solemnity. That gay little 
gibe ! From a girl who took everything with such a 
deadly seriousness ! All her other letters to him had 
been so consistently typical of her. None of them had 
shown a gleam of that sort — — 

“ Stop a bit, though. There was the other letter with 
that unaccountable Thing in it,” young Urquhart re- 
minded himself, sitting up suddenly in bed an hour or so 
later. “ By Jove, yes. Supposing to-night’s letter 
proves to be a sort of sidelight upon that other one? 
I say ! I’ll have a look at it now.” 

He slipped out of bed and snapped on the lights. 
He went to the dressing-table. Here, beside pipe, pouch 
and matches, lay a worn and favourite pig-skin pocket- 

book. He picked it up and took out of it 

First, his receipted bill from that little French hotel. 
Next, a little sheaf of visiting cards with addresses; 


183 


A WHITE NIGHT 


home-people he’d promised to 44 look up ” for some of 
his pals at the Camp. 

Then, some letters. No ! It wasn’t this one, or this 
one. . . . Here it was, at last, in one of the well-known 
grey envelopes. He shook out of the envelope a handful 
of once-pink rose-petals, and laid them carefully aside 
on the open pocket-book. He scarcely looked at them 
now ; he’d looked at them often enough already. It was 
the letter at which he now stared. The only other one of 
Eleanor’s letters which was uncharacteristic of the girl 
as he knew her. The one he’d received to-night seemed 
to have a girl’s laugh rippling between the lines. But 
this first one held something more betraying. Some- 
thing which, because it was incomprehensible, Ted 
Urquhart had 44 given up.” Well, here it was for him 
to puzzle over once again. The letter that had brought 
him home! 

In his lighted room, orderly and deathly silent, it 
seemed for a moment as if something were holding its 
breath behind the shoulder of that young man in 
pyjamas. There was nothing specially striking in the 
actual contents of that letter. 44 And she ends up so pre- 
cisely,” he mused for the hundredth time, 44 with her 

4 There seems to be nothing else that would interest 
you’ 


And then, by George, over the page”- 


A WHITE NIGHT 


183 


He turned it. 

— “ there’s this! ” 

The sight of “ This ” would have been a petrifying 
shock to the girl who’d written it. 

For Rosamond Fayre, secretary, prided herself on 
her neatness and accuracy. She boasted that she’d 
never made the mistakes that every writer of letters 
is said to make once in a life-time. Namely, to slip 
A.’s letter into an envelope addressed to B., or to tear 
up the fair copy of a note while sending off the rough 
draft. 

But it was a compromisingly rough draft that Ted 
Urquhart held now in his hand. 

He held it up to the light, as if he hadn’t already 
held it so many a time, to examine that scribbled — 

“ Darling. My darling! ” 

That was on it. It was all scrawled over with a 
pen-drawn spiral that looked like “ the smoke from the 
engine ” of a child’s drawing. There were one or two 
beginnings of it, a copper-plate “ Dar — ” “ My 

darl ” 

“ My darling! ” 

From Eleanor, if you please. Yes, from Eleanor, 
who never by any chance called him anything but his 
name. 

And so much had been packed into the time since 


184 


A WHITE NIGHT 


that sunny morning in France when he’d met — No! 
None of that again — since the day he’d met Eleanor 
that he’d forgotten to notice the contrast between her- 
self and that one letter of hers. 

And now, in this second letter that he’d received, he 
seemed to trace the possibility of some clue to the mys- 
tery, of the astonishing difference between the Eleanor 
who wrote and the Eleanor who spoke. 

He put down the letter with the “ Darling ” post- 
script, enclosing those rose-leaves. Again he took up 
the letter that had arrived this evening. 

Perhaps he might find in it something he had over- 
looked F He examined it minutely, from the “ My dear 
Ted 99 at the beginning to the little flourish under the 
“ Eleanor Urquhart 99 at the end. 

Ah! Wait a bit! There! Could it be? Was it 

Yes. Tucked away, all but hidden in the loop of 
the flourish, his eye, now that it was on the look-out 
for it, detected something. Two almost imperceptible 
hieroglyphics ; the marks of two crosses. 

Cupid, his mark ! For all the world over that stands, 
in a letter, for one thing only. 

Kisses. 

From Eleanor? From the unawakened girl whose 
only notion of a caress seemed to be that twice-daily 
cousinly peck on the cheek ? She had sent half-concealed 
love-messages to the man to whom she was, by contract, 
engaged ? 


A WHITE NIGHT 


185 


Of course it might amuse a girl to do that, reflected 
Ted Urquhart, lighting his pipe. But surely not that 
girl? Wasn’t she as chilly and youthfully hard as the 
unripest of the green apples in the Court Orchard? 
Or — here he knit his brows and stared into the puff 
of smoke — had he been mistaken from the very beginning 
in his fiancee Eleanor? 

The clocks all over the house chimed One and Two 
and Half-past Two while Ted Urquhart, tramping bare- 
foot up and down his bedroom and smoking hard, went 
on wondering (still resolutely) over this question. 

A moth flew in, with a whirr and drone as of a tiny 
biplane, and circled about under the ceiling. His own 
were the only lights on, of course. Everybody else 
fast asleep hours ago. He wondered if She had cried 
any more over the departure of <£ Cecil 99 after she’d 
gone up — Stop there ! Think of something else. 

Was Eleanor, whom he thought he got “ summed up,” 
a girl he’d never really understood? 

The rising wind outside dashed a cold spatter of 
drops against the young man’s cheek as he passed the 
open casement. He looked out. Those farmer-fellows 
had been wise to get in their corn while they could. 
Out there in the indigo darkness it was coming on to 
rain like blazes ; the light from his room gleamed on the 
lines of it as on the strings of a harp. He half closed 
the window and took up those letters once more. And 
he was conscious of the oddest feeling about them; this 


186 


A WHITE NIGHT 


young man who’d never 44 bothered ” much about feel- 
ings until — fairly recently. 

But it was with a little, sudden, warm thrill of posi- 
tive tenderness that he handled these messages from a 
girl for whom he’d never had any tenderness ... so 
far. 

But supposing that came? Supposing Eleanor did 
turn out to be this utterly unknown quantity ? 

He’d heard of people who could be delightful, charm- 
ing, and warmly friendly while they talked to you, but 
who, on paper, seemed cold and repellently stiff. 
Simply, they couldn’t write letters. Perhaps, then, there 
were other people who could express themselves in 
letters, but who simply couldn’t talk? Became cold, 
self-conscious, too shy to be themselves? Perhaps 
Eleanor’s real self was the bashful, passionate little 
soul who, greatly daring, sent furtive 44 darlings ” and 
kisses and rose-leaves to the lover she’d never seen? 

If that were Eleanor, he must meet her. He must 
know her. He must get her to declare herself. The 
very thought of the quest seemed to bring hope with 
it. . . . 

He heard the clocks striking Three, and stretched 
himself wearily. . . . 

Then suddenly checked himself, with long sinewy 
arms above his head. Ah ! Another idea had just oc- 
curred to him. 

There were those other belated letters already written 


A WHITE NIGHT 


187 


by Eleanor that would be coming on, forwarded from 
the Camp. He might expect to receive these here, one 
at a time ! They were already on their way to 46 Edward 
Urquhart, Esqre.,” at this moment. One just sent on 
from the Camp ; probably, one at the port of embarka- 
tion; one crossing the South Atlantic. . . . 

Would any of them throw fresh light upon the subject 
of their writer? 

Would they be entirely formal and flavourless? Mere 
Club reports? Minutes of meeting? 

Or might they hold just a dash of the other thing? 
The dab of jam in the otherwise so very doughy nut? 
That remained to be seen. How soon, though? Each 
week he’d get one. . . . 

He dropped his arms. He turned to the ivory-leaved 
calendar that stood on the writing-table beside the 
leather-framed, faded photograph of his father in the 
uniform of a Woolwich cadet; he ran his finger down 
until it reached a date. 

What an infernal while to wait until he got another 
letter from this new Eleanor ! 

Her letters were all he had to help him to find her. 

A regular paper-chase ! 

Find her he must ; would 

Here at last he found himself yawning. 

He turned off the lights, and the velvet darkness of 
the window-square was transformed to weeping grey 
as he rolled over in his blankets again. 


188 


A WHITE NIGHT 


He was dog-tired. Rain pattered loudly on the lime- 
trees of that Avenue where, half a life-time ago, he’d 
heard . . . what left him still aching with misery, 
frustration, hopelessness. 

No. No! Not that. He was not going to think 
of it. He’d got something to think of. The hope of 
this new Eleanor. Getting on to the track of the girl 
who’d slipped hints of such a different personality into 
two of her letters. 

Eleanor had thought of sending him those petals ; had 
smuggled in crosses for him to find. . . . 

Rose-leaves. . . . 

And kisses, of all things. . . . 

Here Ted Urquhart rolled over for the last time and 
slept. 


CHAPTER XIV 


A PAPER-CHASE 

Long afterwards it seemed to Ted Urquhart as if for 
many summer days he lived at Urquhart’s Court two 
distinct and separate lives. 

The Ted Urquhart of one life made himself inter- 
estedly busy about his estate. He listened patiently 
enough to the conversation of his Uncle on cyphers, 
ancient parish registers, and the Impossibility of War 
between civilised nations then of that present date (of 
June, Nineteen Fourteen). He took his fiancee out in 
the car, to pay a round of calls, as an engaged couple 
should, upon people in the neighbourhood who “ had 
always known the Urquharts ” (and a deadly bar to 
conversation he found it). He suggested to Eleanor 
that, as an antidote, he and she might do another round, 
of London theatres, music-halls, Opera. 

“ Oh, that’s very kind of you, Ted,” he was told, 
“ but I’m afraid I couldn’t possibly spare the 
time.” 

“ Not even for a few evenings and afternoons?” 

“ Oh, I’m afraid not.” 

(What a fiancee! What an engagement! All this 
must be altered!) 


189 


190 


A PAPER-CHASE 


“ I think, then,” he said, “ that I shall go up alone 
for a couple of days.” 

He did so. He looked up and haled forth to dinners 
and lunches such old schoolfellows of his as he could 
find. He beheld a youth who had been his fag make 
a century at Lord’s. He took pilgrimages into the 
dullest suburbs to visit the faded, patient women-folk of 
some of his mates whom he had left, bronzed and keen 
and jolly and disreputable, at the South American 
Camp. He gave “ the latest news ” (publishable) of 
these young men, and received worshipping hospitality 
in return. He asked other men down to The Court for 
lazy days. He persuaded himself, quite often, that he 
was having a very good time at home. This was the 
first of his two lives. 

But in his second life he was far more occupied. 
Those other surface things were trifling compared to 
what he was really doing. He was for ever keeping a 
look-out for that girl of his ; not Miss Fayre, who was 
engaged to that other fellow, nor the Eleanor he saw, 
up to her eyes in good works he could not follow; but 
that new Eleanor of the letters. 

It exasperated him to find how skilfully she managed 
to keep herself hidden away! 

His fiancee was always the same to him; matter-of- 
fact, dutifully pleasant. 

He ransacked his brains for some opportunity to 
bring up the subject of those letters. Stupid — her own 


A PAPER-CHASE 191 

letters ! How could he say to Eleanor, 44 1 say, do you 
know what you wrote — ? ” 

It couldn’t be supposed that the girl didn’t know 
what she’d written herself, could it? Yet it looked 
very like it! 

In fact, young Urquhart was beginning to wonder 
whether he hadn’t imagined the whole thing, when some- 
thing happened to set him off on the trail again, keener 
and more curious than ever. 

He received another of those belated letters from his 
fiancSe. 

The post arrived while they were at breakfast, which 
Miss Urquhart 44 liked early.” Her father breakfasted 
an hour later in his room. So the young owner of The 
Court sat at the oval table, bright with the glitter of 
morning sunshine on Mr. Beeton’s wonderful silver and 
Mr. Marrow’s freshest sweet-peas, opposite to his 
fiancSe and to the right of his fiancee’s secretary. As 
usual, Eleanor’s plate was snowed under with corre- 
spondence; begging letters, circulars, estimates. As it 
happened, he and Miss Fayre had only one letter apiece 
that morning. (He didn’t allow himself to wonder who 
hers was from.) He tore open his travelled-looking 
envelope and began to read. 

The crisp bacon on his plate was allowed to grow 
cold as he read. For it was a long letter. More, it 
was an interesting letter. That is, it possessed the 


192 


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factor which renders any letter, any conversation in- 
teresting to a young man. 

Namely, it was all about himself. 

Yes ! For the first time, his fiancee's weekly letter 
held direct questions about his work, his life out there, 
his thoughts. 

These were interspersed, certainly, with more familiar 
phrases about the weather for the time of year and the 
people who had been to call. But this was the smooth 
surface; underneath was the unmistakable bubbling of 
curiosity. Those questions kept cropping up. They 
made him feel that a girl in Kent was saying to an un- 
known young man in South America, “ I will know you ! 
I will find out what sort of a creature you are ! ” It 
was just as he himself was grimly determined to find 
out “ what sort of a creature ” this Eleanor of his really 
was under all her reserves and preoccupations and 
fussinesses. 

One paragraph at the end mentioned a name now 
familiar to Ted. But it mentioned it in such an un- 
familiar spirit! 

“ A very clever Collegy sort of woman was here to 
lunch; a Miss Fabian, who had a tremendous argument 
with father. She said she was sure that the Antagonism 
of Sex was far stronger to-day — though perhaps more 
hidden — than its usual attraction. She said that there 
could be no Peace in this contest until the 4 hide- 


A PAPER-CHASE 193 

ous handicap ’ of being a woman was removed. I won- 
dered. 19 

The girl who wrote that had surely never found that 
being a woman was any handicap? It sounded as if 
she had been demurely revelling in its glorious advan- 
tage, thought the young man. 

He lifted his head to give a long and very direct look 
above the table at Eleanor. Absently she put out the 
hand that wore his ring. The other held a sheaf of 
papers. She said, vaguely in his direction, “ Some more 
coffee? ” 

“ Thanks, I’ve still got some,” he said resignedly. 

He re-read the end of the letter that was so unchar- 
acteristic. 

“ Wishing that I could see exactly where you would 
be and what you would be doing and looking like when 
you get this 

from 

Eleanor.” 

Well! Here he was, and she could see for herself, 
exactly, if she took the trouble to look across the table 
at him! 

But no; there she was, deep in her blessed circulars! 
Absorbed in anything that had nothing to do with the 
man she had arranged to marry! Or was she merely 
pretending to be absorbed? Which? 


194 


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Ted Urquhart determined to spring a mine upon her 
there and then. Up to then he hadn’t said a word to 
his fiancee about these letters forwarded on. He was 
keeping that for a convenient and useful occasion. This, 
he thought, was the occasion. 

He made a little rustling with the thin sheet in his 
bronzed hand, then sat back and looked straight at her 
again. Then he said, perhaps a trifle more loudly and 
emphatically than he usually spoke, “ Well, Eleanor ! 
— I have to thank you for a rather specially nice 
letter.” 

Eleanor looked up from her circulars behind the 
French, glass-globed coffee-machine. 

“ Letter? ” she echoed, puzzled. “ I haven’t written 
you any letter, Ted.” 

“ Not lately, I know,” said Ted Urquhart blandly. 
“ This one ” — he folded it into its envelope and laid 
it on the table beside him almost with the movement 
of a man who is playing a card in some game — “ this 
one must have reached the Camp after Pd left. One 
of those fellows forwarded it on here from South 
America. It’s weeks old now. I’m glad I got it back 
safely, though.” 

He was watching Eleanor, hard, as he spoke. 

It never occurred to him to watch the tall, golden- 
haired secretary-girl who made the third at this bright 
breakfast-party of young people. 

But if at this moment he had happened to look at 


A PAPER-CHASE 


195 


her, he would have seen quite a startling change come 
over the attractive face of Miss Rosamond Fayre. 

It was gone as quickly as it came. The next moment 
she was apparently deep in the one letter that had come 
for her. But in reality she was keenly on the alert. 
A sudden fright had taken her. For what the secretary- 
girl was thinking was 

“ Now ! I see what’s happened ! Eleanor’s dear Ted 
has just got one of the letters that I wrote to him , for 
her! And he suspects something! He knows that 
Eleanor never wrote it ! He knows ! She’s caught — 
that is, we’re caught ! Oh ” 

She would have given her month’s salary to know 
even which one of those proxy-letters it was. If only 
Eleanor’s dear Ted would (but of course he wouldn’t) 
give some hint now about which phrase it was that he 
found so “ specially nice ! ” 

With perfect outward composure Miss Fayre helped 
herself to a piece of toast and began to butter it. 

Anyhow, he had said he was u glad he’d got it.” 
That ought to apply to any letter from one’s fiancee , 
though. 

The question was, did Eleanor realise what had just 
happened? No! She didn’t seem to, thought Eleanor’s 
secretary, with her eyes fixed on her own share of the 
morning’s post. It was nothing much (a mere note 
about some alterations to be made in Miss Fay re’s 
costume by that obscure but clever little dressmaker 


196 


A PAPER-CHASE 


who had created that still unworn pink frock), but 
Miss Fayre studied the sheet as if it came from a de- 
clared lover, whilst her ears were pricked up to catch 
what Eleanor was going to say next. 

Eleanor said casually, “Ah, one of my letters come 
back again? How quick that seems ! 55 

The next moment Rosamond’s trepidation over this 
proxy-letter affair had become absolute panic. For 
she’d heard Mr. Ted Urquhart’s quiet reply: 

“ Oh, I’ve had more than one.” 

He’d had more than one? thought the quailing Rosa- 
mond. Then it didn’t matter which of them he’d got 
this morning. He’d guessed something. He’d received 
letters here, from Eleanor, and this apparently was 
the first time that he mentioned them. Of course that 
meant that he suspected something about them ! 

Rosamond Fayre’s blue eyes stole up, from her 
dressmaker’s note, to the every-coloured bank of sweet- 
peas and above it, for one quick covert glance at the 
brown face of the young man. 

Absolutely exasperatingly calm ; inscrutable. A sort 
of irritatingly good-looking male Sphinx. 

“ Looking just as he did that afternoon at the Hostel 
when nothing on earth would induce him to give away 
his name,” thought Rosamond resentfully. “ He’s not 
the sort of young man who will give anything away, 
ever, until he chooses ! ” 

And the thought of the Hostel brought another; a 


A PAPER-CHASE 


197 


thought of terror. Yes ; to complete her own rout 
there broke over her the overwhelming recollection of 
the last letter that she had written to the address of 
“ E. Urquhart, Esqr.” That letter she’d handed 
through the Hostel window for E. Urquhart, Esqre., to 
post to himself, just after she’d refused to come out 
to tea with him. H’m ! He thought this morning’s 
letter was “ rather specially nice,” did he? What would 
he think of that Hostel one? Heavens ! That letter 
would be enough to blow the three of them, breakfast- 
table and all, through the ceiling as a bomb would have 
blown them ! 

That letter was on its way to Urquhart’s Court, to 
complicate matters, even worse. . . . 

And matters were quite complicated enough as they 
stood. That probably suspecting young man was the 
master of the situation, thought Rosamond ruefully. 
She and Eleanor were something like fellow-con- 
spirators. 

It wasn’t her — Rosamond’s — fault! She’d jibbed; 
she’d said what she could ! She’d done it under protest, 
to save her post. Still, she had helped his j fiancee to 
play what now suddenly seemed like a very shabby trick 
on the young man ! 

And when that trick all came out, as it might? 

Well, it might conceivably mean that Miss Urquhart’s 
highly convenient engagement would be broken off, and 


198 


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that Miss Fayre’s quite desirable post would be lost 
after all! 

But this state of affairs didn’t seem to dawn upon 
the other girl. 

Obviously, Rosamond must have a talk over the whole 
thing, now, as soon as possible, with Eleanor. 


CHAPTER XV 


FELLOW-CONSPIRATORS 

Half-an-hour later Rosamond Fayre tried to open 
the subject in Miss Urquhart’s office. 

“ Eleanor, I wanted to speak to you ” 

“ I’m just coming, with the letters.” 

“ It’s not about the letters. Not the businessAetterS) 
I mean ” 

“ Then I’m afraid it will have to wait, Rosamond. 
We must get these done first.” 

The impatient Rosamond “ took down ” and typed 
as if during an examination for speed, but it was twelve 
o’clock before the morning’s correspondence was out 
of the way. Fortunately Miss Urquhart’s fiance was 
also out of the way in the motor-pit with the chauffeur, 
strenuously busy over some hitch in the mechanism 
which was causing Her Ladyship (the car) to “ get very 
sarcastic coming up the hills.” Rosamond hoped the 
job would keep him nice and late for lunch while she 
had her consultation with Eleanor. 

This took place on the smaller lawn beyond the 
gardens. 

Here, on the warm turf where the Club girls had 
waltzed on the afternoon of the Hen-party, Eleanor 
199 


200 


FELLOW-CONSPIRATORS 


had now laid down sheets and sheets of newspaper. 
Upon these she and her secretary were going to spread 
out rose-leaves to dry for pot-pourri, that would be sent 
up to a London depot and sold in perforated vases for 
the benefit of some Guild. 

The two girls walked up to the lawn together, look- 
ing the queerest contrast to one another; dark Eleanor, 
whose “ good ” coat-and-skirt of one of the more trying 
shades of shantung seemed specially chosen to conceal 
every line of her stiff, affairee little figure; fair Rosa- 
mond, tall and dainty and loose-limbed, lending all her 
own shapeliness to one of those ready-made voile frocks, 
rose-sprigged, with a belted and befrilled tunic — of 
which a thousand duplicates had been sold in the sum- 
mer sales, and which would look cheap and common 
enough on many of its wearers. It seemed impossible 
that they should have a single interest, a single occupa- 
tion in common — this pair of girls whose handwritings 
alone were alike ! Both girls now carried shallow, large 
wicker baskets full of the scented petals that seemed 
all ready to strew upon the path of a bride. They knelt 
down close together on the turf as they proceeded to 
spread the rose-leaves on the paper. 

“ Just like conspirators . . . down to the attitude ! 
. . . On all-fours, just as if we were taking cover,” 
thought Rosamond, ruefully amused. 

Then, with a “ Now-for-it ! ” expression on her face, 
she cleared her throat. She began to explain, hurriedly 


FELLOW-CONSPIRATORS 


201 


and softly and almost as if she were afraid of being 
overheard, that she 44 had been made to feel rather un- 
easy, this morning. . . .” 

Her difficulty, she found, was to make Eleanor Urqu- 
hart see that there could be anything to feel uneasy 
about. 

Eleanor only said in mild surprise, 44 How do you 
mean, you 4 think Mr. Ted Urquhart has got an idea 
that I didn’t write my letters to him myself ’ ? ” She 
was sorting out long leaves of lemon-verbena, grey-blue 
heads of lavender, jagged carnation-petals to mix with 
the roses, as she talked. 44 How can he guess you wrote 
for me, Rosamond ? It isn’t very likely that he’s noticed 
anything about our having the same sort of hand- 
writing ” 

44 Ah, it’s nothing at all to do with handwritings t 
It’s not come to that yet. It hasn’t come to his thinking 
I’ve anything to do with the letters. But I’m sure that 
he’s noticing that there’s something different about the 
letters themselves,” declared Rosamond emphatically, as 
she smoothed that confetti of pink-and-white-and- 
damask petals into a thinner layer on her sheet. 44 1 
know he is.” 

44 It must be your imagination,” came Eleanor’s con- 
cise little voice. 44 What 4 something ’ has there been 
for him to notice? You wrote exactly as if you were 
me ” 

44 Can anybody write exactly as if they were somebody 


202 


FELLOW-CONSPIRATORS 


else? I’ve always known they couldn’t! A letter’s 
bound to 4 catch ’ something characteristic of the writer ! 
Something creeps in, like the tone of one’s own voice, 
speaking ! One can’t help that, Eleanor — — ” 

44 But you did. I saw ! ” said the other girl reassur- 
ingly. 44 1 passed all the letters myself. Except two 
or three, perhaps. There was that afternoon I motored 
Miss Fabian back to her rooms and I couldn’t get back 
before post-time, or something else happened. But I’m 
sure they would be all right — these little white roses are 
the sweetest of all — they were just the usual thing, 
weren’t they? I know how careful you are with all my 
correspondence.” 

44 I’ve tried. Yes, I have tried to be careful,” said 
the secretary-girl uneasily. 44 But ” 

She paused. Here was something of which she had 
to make a clean breast. 44 In one of those letters to 
Mr. Ted Urquhart I’m afraid I wasn't quite careful, 
Eleanor,” she admitted. 44 1 must have been in a 
mood ” 

She stopped again. 44 Moods ” were things Eleanor 
rather despised, as Rosamond knew. All this was em- 
barrassingly difficult ! It’s so much easier to own up 
to wrong-doing than to having done something silly! 
She took another handful of petals out of her basket 
and began again. 

44 Just for fun, I suppose, I sent something ... as 
from you. I put ” 


FELLOW-CONSPIRATORS 


203 


Eleanor’s dark head turned a little impatiently. 

44 Well? You put what? ” 

With a suspicion of bravado in her pretty voice 
Rosamond Fay re confessed to the ultimate folly of what 
she’d put. 44 Kisses.” 

44 What!” ejaculated Eleanor. And she moved still 
kneeling, so suddenly that she upset her basket. The 
rest of the rose-leaves spilled softly out into a fragrant 
stack before her. Above it she stared with dark, in- 
credulous eyes at her secretary. 44 Kisses? ” 

Rosamond Fayre, feeling more than foolish, put 
forward an historic excuse. 44 They were only very 
little ones!” 

44 But you actually wrote that I — 1 sent kisses 
to ” 

44 No ! I didn’t write that!” Rosamond broke in 
still more quickly, bending over the overturned heap 
of rose-leaves as she spoke. 44 It was at the very end 
of one letter; hidden away in the twirly thing you do 
under your name. I think I wanted to see if you'd 
notice when you passed the letter; and you didn’t. So 
Mr. Ted Urquhart probably wouldn’t see them at all 
— unless he was looking for them. Two quite tiny ones 
I put ; like this ” 

She took up the small pencil-case she wore dangling 
from a silver chain, and on the margin of the news- 
paper-sheet before her she drew a couple of those 


204 


FELLOW-CONSPIRATORS 


hieroglyphics over which a sleepless young man had 
pored and pondered more than a week ago. . . . 

Mr. Ted Urquhart’s fiancee contemplated those 
hieroglyphics silently and as if they were noisome insects 
that had just crawled out of the rose-leaves. 

“ I know,” said Rosamond Fayre, abashed. “ I 
know I oughtn’t to have put those, Eleanor. You 
wouldn’t have.” 

Eleanor, in her austerest tone, answered at last. “ I 
shouldn’t have thought anybody would put anything so 
vulgar. Except, perhaps, g-girls like P-P-P-Pansy ! ” 

Rosamond flushed deeply. She felt that Eleanor’s 
reproof was just. She often felt (as girls surcharged 
with any warmth of temperament are so frequently 
forced to feel) “ I can't be a very ‘ nice * girl. Really 
nice girls are rather shocked at me." And she regretted 
that she seemed sometimes more akin to Pansy than to 
what “ a lady ” should be in emotions and thoughts. 
. . . Nevertheless she longed at that instant for the 
presence of the Principal Boy. Pansy could have 
“ stood up to ” Miss Urquhart in a way that Miss 
Urquhart’s secretary couldn’t. 

Miss Urquhart was so “ difficult ” these days ! Far 
more forbidding than the Eleanor of Rosamond’s school- 
time, the dark-eyed monitress who had always been 
helpful and kind, almost motherly to the younger girls ! 

“ They say being engaged 6 softens ’ a girl,” Rosa- 
mond thought. “All I can say is that it — or some- 


FELLOW-CONSPIRATORS 


205 


thing — ‘ hardens ’ this one ! I ought to have known 
how she’d take this — — ” 

She said aloud, meekly, “ I was afraid you’d think it 
very dreadful, Eleanor.” 

“ A little vulgar, as I say ; that is all. Still, it can’t 
be helped now,” said Eleanor Urquhart, with that line 
of displeasure dividing her brows. “ And it doesn’t 
matter — particularly.” 

“ Eleanor,” persisted Rosamond, still warmly flushed, 
“ I’m afraid it — or more likely something else — must 
have 6 mattered ’ — Made all the difference in your 
letters ” 

“How? Were there any more of — those?” Miss 
Urquhart asked with a gesture of distaste towards the 
two crosses marked on the paper. “ Larger ones? ” 

“ No. Oh, no! ” 

“Or anything else of the same kind?” suggested 
Eleanor, rising to her feet and moving along the line of 
spread newspapers. Her secretary said, truthfully as 
she thought, “ No.” 

“ Very well, then. There’s nothing to make him 
6 suspect.’ He can’t.” 

“ But — He is! Look at him ! ” broke out Rosamond, 
rising also and giving a sweep of her long arm, as if 
she were indicating the young man who was at that 
moment engaged at the other end of the grounds ; shirt- 
sleeved and sweating and grunting over — or rather, 
under — machinery that seemed to him such a simple 


206 


FELLOW-CONSPIRATORS 


thing compared with the motives and mind of a woman. 
“ Do you look at him? Do you ever look at him? ” 

And she thought impatiently, 44 How impossible it is 
to discuss anything with the kind of girl who’s too re- 
served to say a word about her lover ! How much easier 
it would be if Eleanor were even the exhausting type 
who brought her hair-brushes into my room every night 
to gush over what he’s like. I don’t even get a hint of 
what he is like to her l ” And she persisted, urgently, 
aloud — 44 Did you watch him at breakfast? He was 
watching you, Eleanor, as a cat watches a mouse-hole ! 
He was waiting with all his ears to hear what you’d 
say when he suddenly burst it upon us — upon you — 
that your letters were coming home to roost ! ” 

44 Have you any other reason,” Eleanor enquired, 
44 for thinking he’s thought anything of the kind ? ” 

44 No, I haven’t. But one can’t help feeling things 
like that, in one’s bones,” persisted Rosamond. 44 The 
whole air at breakfast-time was quivering with some- 
thing being 4 up.’ I saw Mr. Ted Urquhart looking it, 
I tell you ! ” 

44 Oh, you fancied it.” 

44 1 wish I had ! No,” said Rosamond gloomily. 
44 Either he’s caught us out, or he will soon.” 

44 Nonsense,” said Eleanor, a little uneasily, a little 
shortly. 

More shortly Rosamond took her up. 44 Well, do 
you care to ask him if he’s noticed — — ” 


FELLOW-CONSPIRATORS 207 

44 1 ? Ask him anything at all about it ? Certainly 
not.” 

44 Very well. Then we — you won’t know anything 
until he chooses,” prophesied Rosamond, kneeling again. 
44 1 mean until he’s definitely got to the bottom of the 
whole trick we played upon him.” 

44 Er — Did you get me a few sp-p-p-prigs of rosemary 
to put in with the rest? Thank you,” said the re- 
strained little voice of Eleanor as she stood over her. 
It added with less restraint, 44 1 don’t like your calling 
that a 4 trick.’ ” 

44 I’m sorry. But I think you’ll find he'll call it one,” 
returned her secretary, stripping the sprigs of rose- 
mary with fingers that shook a little from temper, 
though her voice was quiet. She was thinking, 44 If 
there’s any truth in the old proverb 4 Where Rosemary 
grows the Mistress is Master 9 the bush I picked this 
from will be withered up by next year.” 

She continued to speak quite quietly. 44 Surely, 
Eleanor, you see that he isn’t the sort of man to stand 
it? I mean what man would put up with having a 
stranger’s letters palmed off on him, under the pretence 
that they came from his -fiancee ? Imagine a man like Mr. 
— Any man, I mean ! When he finds out that’s what’s 
been done — well, I’m afraid of what will happen ! ” 

44 You are afraid? ” 

44 Yes. Do you think I’ve nothing to lose? I’ve my 
living ! ” said Rosamond, sitting back on her heels and 


208 


FELLOW-CONSPIRATORS 


looking up at her girlish employer. 44 The reason I 
gave in to you about writing to him at all was because 
I didn’t want to lose my post here ! That’s what I’m 
afraid of now ! ” 

44 But — I haven’t been thinking of your going ! ” said 
Eleanor. 

44 You may have to think of it! ” said Rosamond re- 
lentlessly. 44 Supposing you can’t afford to keep on a 
secretary any longer? Supposing you leave The 
Court? Supposing your engagement — suddenly 
ends? ” 

Still Eleanor didn’t understand. 

44 Why should it suddenly end ? ” 

44 Your fiance,” said Rosamond, 44 might think that 
trick was reason enough ! ” 

“ What! ” 

44 Well, I think so — now,” said Rosamond, lifting 
those drying rose-leaves and letting them slip through 
her white fingers again. 

Eleanor’s face, looking down at her, at last began 
to show a dawning anxiety. She protested, 44 But I was 
so busy!” 

44 Well ! ” The secretary-girl gave a short laugh. 
44 Tell him that ! ” 

44 1 — see,” said Eleanor, slowly. She was silent for 
a moment as she stood, backed by the clipped box-hedge, 
looking down at the green turf and at the flower-strewn 
paper and at the easy movements of the kneeling girl 


FELLOW-CONSPIRATORS 209 

at her feet. “ You mean — that might seem so odd 
to Ted. Now I’ve seen him — — ” 

“ It seemed impossible enough to me before I saw 
him ! But now you’ve seen him,” said Rosamond, 
tossing her petals, “ you don’t want him to break off the 
engagement, do you?” 

“Oh, Rosamond 1 No! Of course I don’t!” agreed 
the other girl with a sudden fervour that made her 
secretary glance quickly at her. A new note of trepida- 
tion shook that little trite arranging voice of Eleanor’s 
as she gasped, “ Don’t you see what it would mean to 
me?” 

Rosamond nearly exclaimed, “ Does he, then, mean 
so much after all? ” But Ted Urquhart’s fiancee went 
on, “ How could I carry on my Club-work if we didn’t 
live at The Court? You know, Father would lose all 
the estate money that Ted wishes him to use; and he 
has very little of his own, I’ve only three hundred a year 
of my own, from my mother. As it is at present, I 
am able to put aside more than a hundred a year of 
that towards the Hostel, and I can hand over fifty to 
Miss Fabian’s Guild. And then there’s the use of The 
Court for ” 

The ruling passion again; the good works and the 
girls ! Rosamond Fayre listened in speechless amaze- 
ment ; and, humbly enough, she reflected, “ Yes. 
Eleanor is a much better sort of girl than I am. She’s 
marrying money — but it’s all for other people ! 


210 


FELLOW-CONSPIRATORS 


Her only fear is for those Clubs and that they might 
lose what she can do to help them. She’s willing to 
sacrifice even herself. Oh, I’m afraid I could never 
sacrifice myself. Not even for money! It must be my 
Pansyishness and vulgarity that makes me think only 
of the kind of sweetheart I’d like ! ” 

Then came the wonder, “ What about him ? What 
about Eleanor’s dear Ted?” 

Judging from his attention to Eleanor, he was de- 
voted to her, Rosamond thought. He evidently didn’t 
mind the — the aloofness of his fiancee. He perhaps 
admired her all the more for it ; thought it part of her 
unselfishness and sincerity. But when he found out that 
the sincerity had failed in one particular, towards him- 
self? Wasn’t the devotion more than likely to fail 
also? 

But here was Eleanor saying in a brightening tone, 
“ Well, there are only two or three more letters to 
come now. And even if Ted did think there might 
have been something odd about those, the whole question 

of letter-writing will soon blow over ” 

“ Oh, will it ! ” thought her secretary. “ Not after 
he gets that letter I wrote at the Hostel ! ” 

It was on the tip of her tongue to say so. 

But, after all, that Hostel-letter, which loomed in- 
cessantly at the back of Rosamond’s mind, had nothing 
to do with Eleanor. It was not signed with Eleanor's 
name. Rosamond was in no way bound to talk about it. 


FELLOW-CONSPIRATORS 


211 


So she merely shook her bright head and said rue- 
fully, 44 I’m not counting on anything 4 blowing over.’ 
I’m only sure that we both stand to lose a good 
deal!” 

Now Eleanor was really troubled. She fidgeted with 
the handle of her empty basket. She, usually so prompt 
with what was to be done next in all her affairs, asked 
quite helplessly, “ What are we to do if it turns out 
that you are right? ” 

44 What can we do? ” rejoined Rosamond, looking up 
again. “ You don’t think he can be spoken to about 
what happened? ” 

44 / can’t speak to him. N-N-No, of course I can’t,” 
decided Miss Urquhart. 44 Could you f ” 

44 D’you mean if I were in your place? ” rejoined her 
secretary. 44 But if I were, you see, I shouldn’t have 
got myself into this particular fix. If I’d been engaged 
to — to anybody, I’d have written my own love-letters ! ” 

44 1 d-d-don’t mean that at all. I mean, could you 
go now and tell Ted, — you, Rosamond, yourself, — 
what I got you to do for me? ” 

44 No,” said Rosamond, firmly. 44 No.” 

44 Then nobody will tell him,” said Eleanor. 

44 Then we shall have to wait and see if he elects to 
tell us. Very well. There seems nothing else to be 
done.” 

44 And then what?” demanded Rosamond, again 
rising from her knees. 44 For then — especially after we 


212 


FELLOW-CON SPIRATOF ° 


don’t tell him ! — there’s still the question whether he 
breaks off the engagement.” 

“ Oh, it can’t come to that ! ” demurred Eleanor, 
petulant with anxiety. 

“ It can come to whatever he wishes. What we did 
was, after all, forgery! ” 

“ Oh, it was n-n-nothing of the kind ! ” 

“ The penalty’s the same ! ” 

“‘Penalty’? You’ve a most unpleasant way of 
putting things ! ” said Eleanor, facing her. 

But it was not Eleanor’s annoyance that made her 
secretary tremble for her post. Rosamond answered 
without hesitation, “ I mean the broken engagement.” 

“ If it is broken, it will be your fault,” Eleanor re- 
torted quite hotly. “ You will have done it, with — ” 
again she pointed down to the coded kisses on the paper 
— “ with those two — things ! ” 

“ No ; I shan’t. You’ll have done it yourself,” Rosa- 
mond insisted, “ with your whole senseless idea of drag- 
ging a third person into it at all. Always a mistake, 

in any engagement ! Always ” 

She paused. Both girls were flushed now. They 
looked into each other’s faces with hostile eyes. Then 
both at once seemed to realise that hostility cannot be 
allowed between allies making common cause against an 
enemy. 

Eleanor smiled deprecatingly, though still on her 
dignity, and began again, “ Well, we need not quarrel.” 


“ v LLO W-CON SPIR ATORS 213 

Rosamond said ruefully — - 

“ I’m sorry I called your idea 4 senseless ’ ” 

“ I’m sorry I said what I did about those — about 
your message,” admitted Eleanor. “ I daresay plenty 
of — other girls might put that sort of thing in a 
letter 

Rosamond’s blue eyes fell — upon the strewn rose- 
petals that reminded her of something. She murmured : 

“ That — message wasn’t very much worse, I thought, 
than the handful of rose-leaves you sent him, another 
time. You did send those ! ” 

“ Yes, but you told me to ! ” protested Eleanor. 
“ Don’t you remember? That was one of your ideas! ” 

“ Oh ! dear ! ” sighed Rosamond, “ so it was ” 

“ Anyhow,” said Eleanor, “ those didn’t count.” 
(English rose-leaves — in a South American camp! 
Worn at a woman’s breast — carrying their message a 
thousand miles and more — treasured in a man’s pocket- 
book even now — They didn't count?) 

“ The question is,” repeated Eleanor, “ what are we 
to do now? Can we settle what we are to say if Ted 
does ask anything? ” 

“ If he asks, 4 Why are some of your letters so 
different? ’ had you better say that you, personally, 

don’t consider they are different ” mused Rosamond. 

“ Shall I have to ask to see them all (if he’s kept 
them) and then go over them with him and explain 
them ? ” suggested the engaged girl dolefully. “ I 


£14 FELLOW-CONSPIRATORS 

don’t believe I shall even remember which are my 
own ! ” 

44 He’ll soon tell you which he thinks are not ! ” 

44 Oh, Rosamond ! Oh, why did I ever ask you to 
help me over the wretched letters? Oh! How I wish 
I hadn’t even promised I’d write every mail-day ! Shall 

I say that to him? Or had I better ” 

The discussion prolonged itself until the two girls 
were even later for lunch than was the young man 
against whom they plotted. 

And in the end, all the decision to which these fellow- 
conspirators came was the time-honoured decision that 
closes so many even weightier discussions : 

— Namely, 44 For the present to let things drift! ” 


CHAPTER XVI 


“ NOT TO BE FORWARDED ” 

Miss Ukquhart’s secretary was not the only person at 
Urquhart’s Court who thought of “ that Hostel-letter.” 

For presently the young man to whom it had been 
written, the young man who had been forced into post- 
ing it to himself in that French pillar-box at the 
crossroads, yes, Mr. Ted Urquhart himself, remem- 
bered that last letter that was to come. 

And he’d realised that there was something odder 
than all the rest of it about the posting of that letter. 

Hadn’t it been handed to him to post, by Eleanor’s 
secretary, through the window of Eleanor’s Hostel? 
But Eleanor herself had been at that moment in Paris. 
Now what was the meaning of that? thought Urqu- 
hart. 

Why hadn’t his -fiancee written direct from Paris, 
where she had put in a whole week? 

Why, in the name of all that was mysterious, had she 
left that letter behind her? 

Was Eleanor in the habit of writing letters and 
addressing envelopes for him at odd times, and then 
deputing them to be posted, one by one, at the right 
time — or what? 


215 


216 “ NOT TO BE FORWARDED ” 

Young Ted Urquhart, brooding over these questions 
in that second inner life of his, had a presentiment that 
perhaps that Hostel-letter might prove the key to a 
situation. 

Once before he had reckoned up how long it would 
be before that letter reached him. This had been as he 
stood on the dusty, white French road, weighing in his 
hand the letter which he then imagined had been written 
to him by that goddess-built, golden blonde whom his 
thoughts had called “ Nell ” 

Never mind that now. Here he was walking along 
an English road that wound between English hop-fields, 
and reckoning up how long it would be before he re- 
ceived the last of Eleanor’s letters that she had ever 
written before she met him in the flesh. 

He remembered — and he laid his plans accordingly. 

These were his plans. 

He determined to say nothing to Eleanor on the sub- 
ject of letters. To wait at The Court until that last 
letter arrived. Then — well, there was an open invita- 
tion to the house of an old schoolfellow in Wales, for 
some fishing. He’d fit that in. He’d go away, first 
making Eleanor promise to write to him. Then he’d 
have letters to compare. With luck he’d have some 
definite excuse to speak out his mind to Eleanor upon 
his return. 

It was a little thing that nipped Ted Urquhart’s 
plans in the bud. 


“ NOT TO BE FORWARDED ” 


The old schoolfellow wrote to him from Wales 
begging him to try and fit in his week at once if he 
possibly could. 

Ted Urquhart was obliged to go two days before 
he intended. Before the arrival of that Hostel-letter. 

It is not necessary to describe in detail that Welsh 
visit, or how young Urquhart fished without very much 
luck. 

Wales, with its jagged skylines and rich crazy-work 
colours should have been a change to him after those 
flat miles of dove-coloured weald about The Court; but 
the fact is that Ted Urquhart didn’t seem to care what 
sort of country he was in just then. For the first time 
in his whole life he was more interested in things that 
were going on inside his own mind. He had moods, like 
a girl. . . . 

Also he found the people amazingly dull. . . . 

He never knew how dull the people found him, or 
w T hat strictures the girls of the house passed upon 
the stodginess and the apathy of engaged young 
men. 

Only, he overheard a remark of his hostess’s that set 
him wondering again. 

— “ hope they’ll be happy ! But I am afraid the 
man who marries Eleanor Urquhart will find that he’s 
let himself in for marrying S. Ursula’s eleven 
thousand ” 


218 


“ NOT TO BE FORWARDED 99 


Here a door had shut. 

What could his hostess mean? 

Did she mean that his Eleanor was such a many-sided 
little creature that the man who got her found eleven 
thousand different types of wife rolled into one? He 
wished he could have catechised his hostess. . . . 

Every day he received a note from Eleanor. An 
absolutely deadly one. Dutiful, short, and in the style 
of all her first letters from The Court. 

But the Hostel-letter wasn’t forwarded on. 

Yet he’d thought he’d made sure of the date when 
that Hostel-letter ought to have arrived. 

It didn’t come. 

Odd! 

Now that Hostel-letter, with the French stamp and 
postmark under the South American scrawl had arrived 
at The Court. 

Weeks ago that unbetraying grey envelope had been 
stared at resentfully, in a passion of curiosity, by 
some one who, standing on a road in France, longed 
to open the letter, but knew that he mustn’t. And now 
it was being eyed as if it were a bomb timed to go off 
at a given hour, by two girls standing in the hall of 
an English country-house. 

Young Urquhart had held the letter, weighing it in 
his hand. Eleanor Urquhart and Rosamond Fayre 
gazed at it as it lay on the oaken hall-table, on the 


“ NOT TO BE FORWARDED ” 219 

top of a boot-maker’s catalogue, and an advertisement 
for fishing-rods addressed to E. Urquhart, Esq. 

“ Here’s this letter of mine — of ours to Ted. And 
goodness knows if there may not be something in it 
that’ll give us away worse than the others did, if we 
could only go over it and see,” exclaimed Ted’s fiancee 
to her secretary in low, dismayed tones. 44 Oh ! To 
think that it’s practically mine — and yet I can’t touch 
it, Rosamond ! ” 

Rosamond knowing all too well that this particular 
letter was not Eleanor’s, returned, 44 Well ! I can’t touch 
it, either ! ” 

In Eleanor’s dark eyes she read the unuttered longing 
that it were possible to suppress that possibly tell-tale 
letter; to burn it without saying a word. The engaged 
girl heaved a big sigh, turning away from the hall-table 
almost as if from a temptation. She murmured rue- 
fully, 44 Well, it will have to be forwarded on to him 
in Wales. Re-address it with the other two, Rosamond, 
please.” 

44 IP ” remonstrated Rosamond. 

44 Of course! My dear! We c-c-can’t have both our 
handwritings on the same envelope. That really might 
show something. You’ve the Welsh address, haven’t 
you? With all those double Ls ” 

44 Yes, but — it does seem such an irony to have to 
forward it with one’s own hand. Sort of signing one’s 
own dismissal ! And to tell you the truth,” broke from 


220 


“ NOT TO BE FORWARDED ” 


the secretary-girl, “ I hate thinking of his getting it 
behind our backs, so to speak, and of our not know- 
ing what he may be planning against us until he 
comes ! ” 

“ Wait till he comes then, if you think it’s better,” 
suggested Eleanor Urquhart, turning a flurried, 
irritable little face. “ He’ll be back in four days. 
Don’t send the letter on. Only, if it stays down here, 
Beeton has such a c-c-c-conscientious way of re-ad- 
dressing letters he thinks we’ve forgotten.” She 
turned away again towards her office. “ It had better 
be put up on Ted’s dressing-table, Rosamond.” 

Rosamond took a step after her, speaking in the con- 
spiratorial murmur which now seemed to be growing 
upon both girls. 

“ Eleanor, the servants know your fiance isn’t coming 
home till Monday. Mightn’t they think it odd if they 
were told to keep the letter for him — — ” 

“ Yes, I suppose they might. Oh, dear, what a lot 
of things there are to be careful about now,” complained 
Eleanor. “ I suppose you'd better p-p-put the letter 
into Mr. Ted Urquhart’s room.” 

Rosamond straightened her back. 

She felt like using the phraseology of a rebellious 
housemaid, and saying, “ That’s not my place.” Elea- 
nor was growing more impossible nowadays ; her salary 
certainly had to be worked for, thought Rosamond. 
She said aloud, rather shortly, “ It wouldn’t * show,’ 


221 


“ NOT TO BE FORWARDED ” 

on the envelope, which of us put the letter into his 
room.” 

44 No,” said Eleanor, also shortly. 44 But I hate going 
into other people’s rooms.” 

Rosamond suppressed a Pansy-like inclination to 
think, 44 Well, it’ll be your room soon ; that is if we’re 
lucky, and if your engagement isn’t broken off.” 

She took that letter, written by herself on an impulse 
now bitterly regretted. She went upstairs with it ; and 
then, stepping almost as softly as if she were a thief 
who might be stopped by an enquiry of 44 What business 
have you in here?” she entered the young man’s de- 
serted room. 

How that faint pleasant smell of leather-mixed-with- 
cigarettes seemed to pervade the place ! 

The tall fair girl stood for a second hesitating with 
the letter in her hand. She sent the swiftest glance 
about her, then gave one touch to her burnished hair 
before the glass on Mr. Ted Urquhart’s dressing-table. 
. . . Then, a sudden quick sound made her start vio- 
lently, flushed to the brow. ... Oh! It was only a 
starling, whirring out of the ivy that framed the window 
outside. This dressing-table — here — was the conven- 
tional place to put a note. Rosamond put it down and 
dashed out of the room. 

On the stairs again she thought, 44 I’d like to see his 
face when he reads that! Well, he’ll get it the minute 
he comes back.” 


“ NOT TO BE FORWARDED ” 


Ted Urquhart came back late on Monday afternoon 
to find his uncle, his -fiancee and Miss Fayre, the secre- 
tary, grouped in the bay about the tea-table listening 
to the conversation of an elderly man, some friend of 
his Uncle’s. Young Urquhart dropped into a chair 
beside Eleanor, who bestowed upon him a cup of tea 
and a half-deprecating, half-absent-minded little smile. 

“ Just when the only thing to do in the circumstances 
would be to keep her hold on her fiance by being nicer 
and more on-coming than usual to him,” thought Rosa- 
mond from the other side of the tea-table. As tactics, 
she bitterly resented Eleanor’s manner to young Mr. 
Urquhart. “ Of course a girl should make herself so in- 
dispensable to the man that he’d think, ‘ Oh, he hanged 
to letters! They're only stop-gaps anyhow. I don't 
care how many other people she got to write to me for 
her, provided I keep her within speaking distance of me 
now, until the finish ! ' But Eleanor hasn’t a notion of 
that sort in her head ! ” 

And Rosamond turned her own golden head away 
from the unrewarding view of that engaged couple and 
began again idly to listen to what the elderly Professor- 
person had to say to old Mr. Urquhart. 

It was a haze of words and phrases that Rosamond’s 
acquisitive feminine mind “ let through,” as her shallow 
wicker-work basket, made to hold rose-leaves, would let 
through heavier grain. It seemed to be all about “ lit- 
erary criticism ” and “ style ” — things that had far less 


“ NOT TO BE FORWARDED ” 


interest for Miss Fay re than the slope on the shoulders 
of a blouse she’d been cutting out before tea. 

Suddenly, however, her mind leapt to attention. 

The old Dryasdust-man was violently tapping his 
palm with his forefinger and almost shouting at Mr. 
Urquhart, who looked intensely irritated, “ but, my 
dear sir, the personal elements of style can never be 
eliminated ! The plagiarist may imitate the writing, the 
general trend of argument may arrive at the same con- 
clusions, but the unconscious elements of style remain.” 
This Rosamond thought she grasped. 

“ Unconscious elements ” — Those were not rose- 
leaves, or the little “ plus ” signs that stood for kisses, 
but the give-away tone as of a voice speaking between 
the lines, the things in writing that the writer can’t 
help ! 

Good Heavens ! 

And men recognised the fact? These literary 
people called Bently, and Boyle, and — was it Faleris? 
— had had arguments about it all before Rosamond was 
born ! There might be some pitfall here that she and 
Eleanor had never dreamt of; and they didn’t know 
enough about it to avoid it ; how dreadful ! 

Desperately the secretary-girl turned to the ex- 
pounding Professor. “ That’s very interesting,” she 
said, as old Mr. Urquhart was silent ; his gray elf-locks 
seemed almost to bristle with annoyance at being 
worsted in whatever this argument was. “ But please 


“ NOT TO BE FORWARDED ” 


224 

do explain it a little more ; does it mean that if you had 
two letters, typewritten say, by different people, and 
unsigned, that you could be certain to find out which of 
them was written by the •” 

Here her pretty, interested voice trailed suddenly off 
into an appalled silence. 

She’d met the eyes of Mr. Ted Urquhart full and 
square upon her. And he was listening, intently. He 
was looking as if this subject of the identification of a 
style of writing held some arresting interest for 
himself! 

Instantly she looked away again, but not before the 
blush that rose so easily to her soft cheeks had flooded 
them with the deepest, most betraying pink. 

“ He saw that. Oh, why must I turn colour like a 
mid-Victorian missy always? He’ll put two and two 
together now,” Rosamond raged at herself as that 
scorching, lovely blush faded slowly. “ As soon as he 
reads my letter that’s in his room he’ll guess why I 
turned so idiotically red and why Eleanor’s letters had 
the wrong sort of 6 unconscious elements ’ and every- 
thing ! There ! He’s going ! ” she thought in an added 
flurry as the young man set down his cup and rose. 
“ In two minutes he’ll find that fatal, fatal Hostel-letter 
on his dressing-table. And he’s bound to say whatever 
he means to say directly ! This evening, for 
certain ” 


But that evening passed without event. 


“ NOT TO BE FORWARDED ” 


225 

Several days passed. And still two girls in an Eng- 
lish country-house waited anxiously, while a young man 
in whose sun-burnt and restrained mask of a face the 
impatient eyes seemed on the look-out for something 
far away, said absolutely nothing further on the subject 
of letters. 

“There you are, you see, Rosamond! You were 
wrong, and it is quite all right,” Eleanor reassured her 
secretary in the trite little voice to which all the self- 
assurance had returned. “ Ted hasn’t said a word, in 
spite of getting another letter that you’d written ! ” 

“ It’s almost enough to make one think he hasn’t got 
the wretched letter,” thought Rosamond. “ Yet I left 
it staring him in the face on his dressing-table ! If he 
insisted on ‘ having it out ’ with me about the odious 
letter it would be horrid enough of him. But if he isn’t 
going to have anything out, ever, it’s — it’s — unpardon- 
able! ” 

The fact was that Miss Rosamond Fayre’s first sur- 
mise had been right. Ted Urquhart had not found the 
letter that she had left on his dressing-table. It was 
lying hidden where he would not readily see it. 

For as Rosamond was closing the door behind her 
that morning, a chance breeze from the open window, 
stirred into a strong draught, had lifted the light, 
foreign-papered letter as it lay and had swept it off the 
table and down towards that serried row of young 
Urquhart’s so varied footwear; brown brogues, black 


226 


“ NOT TO BE FORWARDED ” 


boots, soft moccasins, shooting-, fishing-, and riding- 
boots. . . . 

It was at the bottom of one of Ted’s tall riding- 
boots that Rosamond’s Hostel-letter had found a hiding- 
place ! 

And the days went by — days fraught with fate for, 
England, nodding over her sheathed sword. 


PART II 


IN TIME OF WAR 


CHAPTER I 
THE CALL TO ARMS 

There came a time when Rosamond Fayre began to 
think that the Fates had doomed her to spend far too 
much of her existence with a pen in her hand ! 

Paper and ink, and the complications to which paper 
and ink had led — these futile, barren things seemed to 
have made up the whole of her life ever since that after- 
noon at the beginning of the summer when she’d sat 
down to write another girl’s courtship-letter. 

Well, her pen, of course, was Miss Fayre’s profession. 
Clerical work was what she seemed fitted for. And she 
sighed to think so. 

By the middle of August, Nineteen Fourteen, she felt 
she had good reason to sigh impatiently, not only over 
her work, but over her sex ; things that barred her from 
the life of glorious Action and stir and comradeship 
that seemed so much better worth living ! 

227 


ns 


THE CALL TO ARMS 


For a fully feminine young woman of Rosamond’s 
type considers, and will always consider, that the 
Sword is mightier than the Pen. . . . 

How suddenly that glint of the drawn sword had 
flashed over England, even into such rose-garlanded, 
chintz-hung haunts of Peace as Urquhart’s Court ! 

Yes: suddenly one day in its mellow oak-panelled 
dining-room, under the placidly-smiling Romney por- 
trait, there appeared pinned up a brightly-coloured 
War-map, bristling with tiny flags of the European 
nations. In the pot-pourri-scented drawing-room bales 
of grey Army flannel were heaped knee-deep about 
Eleanor Urquhart, who would give them out to wives 
of Reservists in the village for sewing into shirts for 
the troops. And up in her own pretty room sat Rosa- 
mond Fay re the secretary-girl writing (on her own 
account ) a Good-bye to a young man who would shortly 
be off to the Front. 

She wrote: — 

“ My dear Cecil, 

“ Thank you for your letter, which I was so very 
glad to get. It’s splendid that you Territorials will, 
as you say, be allowed a look-in at the present show, 
and I do congratulate you with all my heart. 

“ For the first time in my life I would change places 
with a man, just so as to be a soldier. It’s in War- 


THE CALL TO ARMS 


229 


time that you score. I suppose that if he were alive 
now my dear old boy would be going out, with luck, 
with your Draft.” 

Then she paused. This was not the way she really 
wished to write. She would have liked to send a really 
warm, affectionate letter to her brother’s gentle and 
plucky chum. Gladly she would have told him £hat 
she was proud of him; proud to think that one young 
soldier who was fighting for his country had offered 
himself to her, and that her thoughts and prayers would 
follow him. . . . But it would be fatal, even now, to 
write that sort of letter to Cecil Bray. He would take 
it for more than mere sisterly encouragement, she knew. 
He would be back again with his innocent, persistent 
wooing, as soon as the War was over. Or even before. 
Poor dear Cecil, she thought whimsically, was just the 
sort of youth who might be expected to slip on the gang- 
plank of the troopship as he was embarking, to break 
a leg or a collar-bone, and to be left behind, cursing 
his luck that would not hold either in War or Love. 
Yes; Rosamond must keep her farewells coolly friendly 
if she wished to avoid another of those urgent boyish 
proposals, and another rueful “ Oh, Cecil, I am so 
sorry,” later on. 

She must write on “ outside ” subjects only. Rather 
a pity that she couldn’t employ Eleanor to write some 
of her letters, even as Eleanor employed Rosamond. 
Miss Urquhart’s triteness would be useful here! 


230 


THE CALL TO ARMS 


And Rosamond wrote on: 

“ Even in this Sleepy Hollow of a house we are man- 
aging to raise three men. Beeton the butler went first. 
He is an old Naval Reserve man, and it seems he was 
all ready to rejoin before his orders came. 

“ Then Mr. Marrow the gardener here went off with 
the Yeomanry; and the chauffeur has given notice and 
is going to enlist.” 

Here Rosamond put down that everlasting pen of 
hers and gazed out of the open casement-window above 
the writing-table thoughtfully. . . . She didn’t think, 
at first, that she was thinking of anything in particular. 
. . . But she was. 

She was wondering why the men raised for the Army 
at Urquhart’s Court were only three? 

And Cecil’s letter was interrupted while she wondered 
about it. 

There ought to have been four men from the 
Court. 

There was Mr. Ted Urquhart! why, why on earth 
was he not going too? Why wasn’t he volunteering — 
putting in for some sort of a commission — enlisting — 
getting out somehow to the War? 

For Rosamond Fayre, like a million other gently- 
nurtured girls, who could not have endured one of War’s 
details, could yet contemplate War as a whole with a 


THE CALL TO ARMS 


231 


glad stir of the pulses and the deep-rooted conviction 
that “ Two things greater than All things are — One 
is Love and the other is War ” — Man’s Big Job. Even 
so kindly men (while wincing from any hint of a 
woman’s suffering) will think with a shake of the head 
of the woman who shirks the Big Job of womankind, and 
will say “ A pity she doesn’t have any babies.” 

Rosamond, the Army doctor’s daughter, thought it 
not only a pity, but absolutely inexplicable that young 
Mr. Urquhart hadn’t answered the call to arms. 

Wouldn’t they take him ? 

But they took slow, middle-aged men like Beeton? 
They took mere boys like the chauffeur? They took 
weeds like Mr. Marrow the gardener, thought the dis- 
dainful Rosamond, who, with all women, judged a man’s 
usefulness entirely by his shoulders and limbs. Surely 
they’d jump at the sort of man who could carry castings 
and boilers and things up the Andes? Why, look at 
him ! His clean “ fit ’’-ness ; his whole impression of lithe 
strength ! Even Eleanor’s girls had thought he “ looked 
as if he might be a soldier ” that time in France, so long 
ago, when they hadn’t known who he was ! Wasn’t he 
going to turn soldier, now ? His hand was probably 
as well used to a gun as Rosamond’s own fingers were 
to the silver handle of her mirror. 

Of course it had nothing to do with Rosamond. It 
wasn’t her business to feel pleased with him, or the 


reverse. 


THE CALL TO ARMS 


But she couldn’t help thinking that if she were in 
Eleanor’s place she would be bitterly disappointed in 
Mr. Ted Urquhart. Even poor dear Cecil Bray, who 
was so much younger and who wasn’t even a soldier’s 
son, who had never been further away from Oxford than 
Florence, even he was showing himself to be after all 
more of a man than the other ! 

The thought of Cecil brought her back to his letter. 
The ink upon the paper was black and dry at the last 
sentence. 

Slowly Cecil’s letter was resumed. 

“ The Urquharts themselves have the intellectual, 
‘ enlightened ’ Angell-ic sort of way of looking at the 
War, I think. Old Mr. Urquhart is one of those people 
who have always declared that War is now impossible, 
and that it has no part in our modern civilisation, 
our modern culture. And now he quite calmly says he’s 
like Archimedes, poring over his documents, while the 
armies rage outside his tent. Miss Urquhart thinks 
that 4 All War is so Wrong? ’ The only side she can 
see of it is that the husbands of so many of her old 
Club-girls are Reservists and that the pay their wives 
are allowed is so scandalously small. I am sure it 
will be supplemented by Miss Urquhart’s last half- 
penny. 

“ Will you please remember me to your Mother when 
you write to her ” 


THE CALL TO ARMS 


Rosamond thought with a lump in her throat of 
gentle, grey-haired Mrs. Bray. She wished she might 
add another message. She envied her; she thought it 
must be wonderful to be the mother of a fighting son. 
. . . This she concluded to leave out. So she ended 
up— 

— “ and wishing you the best of luck, and plenty to 
do, and a safe return, 

“ I remain, my dear Cecil, 

“ Your old friend, 

“ Rosamond Fayre.” 

As she fastened the envelope she heard the sound of 
a quick footstep go past her door. Mr. Ted Urqu- 
hart’s. How light-heartedly he was whistling as he 
turned into his own room! 

And yet he was turning his back on what other young 
men of his kind were eager to meet ! 

Here, however, Rosamond Fayre’s conclusions about 
the young master of The Court were quite wrong. 

She did not know that long, long ago Ted Urquhart, 
who had trained as a Civil Engineer, had passed spe- 
cially well in some technically military examination, had 
been recommended for a commission in the R.E. Special 
Reserve, and had put in the requisite drills at Aldershot 
before he went out to that work in South America. . . . 


THE CALL TO ARMS 


234 

And at this moment he was fuming that some detail 
of red tape prevented him from joining upon the in- 
stant. Still, waiting was discipline to which he must 
accustom himself. 

And letters were not the only things upon which this 
young man could keep his mouth shut ; he had not men- 
tioned a word of his plans for joining, either to his 
uncle or to his fiancee. 

Eleanor! She was the girl he was to marry, but 
there was not a girl or woman in the land to whom 
he would not presently stand in a direct relation — that 
of protector — the man behind the gun. 

Up in his room he moved about, whistling, pacing 
up and down, trying to kill the time that dragged so 
before the authorities should find all in order; making 
himself ready as if he might hope to embark next 
day. 

There was another copy of a birth-certificate to be 
turned up, too. . . . 

Also he might decide which of his smaller personal 
possessions could travel with him as part of his Service- 
kit. . . . His flask ; he must get a lighter concern than 
that. A housewife he had. “ Wire-nippers, mustn’t 
forget,” he interrupted the whistle to mutter. Then he 
went on whistling as he sorted receipted bills — (“ Hand 
over to Uncle Henry ”) and took out his worn letter- 
case (“ Might get a smaller one ”). On the Elizabethan 
bed was spread out that business-like invention of a 


THE CALL TO ARMS 


235 


soldier’s wife, the newly-patented Manoeuvre-rug 
(“ Godsend, that, presently ”). Some of these boots 
might be cleared away. . . . He lifted one of his riding- 
boots, turned it upside down to examine some slight sign 
of wear on the heel. 

Once more, and very suddenly, he stopped that 
whistle. 

He did not go on whistling. 

There had dropped from its hiding-place in his boot, 
a letter. 

He picked it up from the green carpet ; gave it one 
glance, recognised the French stamp and the writing. 
Ah! 

Yes ; here it was. Delayed, long-looked-for, mislaid, 
and come back to him at last. 

“ The Hostel-letter ! ” 

That white Hostel was deserted now; its green shut- 
ters barred, and all that friendly coast was to-day a 
waste for the Enemy. . . . 

And here, a written relic of those days of English 
holiday-making on French soil, was this letter. 

Hurriedly young Urquhart tore it open. Quickly he 
read through the one sentence that it contained. 

Then his brown hand, holding the letter, dropped. 

“ What? ” he said curtly, aloud. 

Again he held up the grey sheet, fastening his eyes 
upon the curly clear writing of it as if he would learn 
it off by heart. 


236 


THE CALL TO ARMS 


Yet there was only one sentence in it, and such a 
short and simple one. It would not take much com- 
mitting to memory. And he knew it : his memory would 
hold it for ever, together with a picture. . . . The 
War had almost blotted out that picture ; now it re- 
turned, almost obliterating all sterner images for a 
moment. 

The picture of a golden-haired girl in white, sitting 
writing at an open window, then raising her small 
burnished head on its creamy neck to tell him quietly 
that she had changed her mind about coming out with 
him that afternoon, and that he might post the letters 
for her instead. 

This was all that she had written in the Hostel- 
letter : 

“ Mr. Urquhart , I know quite well who ycm are." 

And she’d signed it with her own name, 

“ Rosamond Faybe.” 

He thrust the note into his pocket and stood frown- 
ing. . . . 

Presently he thought he’d better attend to the busi- 
ness in hand, turn up that blessed certificate. Where 
was the thing? He turned out the case of stationery 
on his writing-table — nothing there. He went to the 


THE CALL TO ARMS 


237 


small drawer where he kept handkerchiefs, turned it 
upside down upon the bed, glanced at the folded square 
of newspaper that had been taken to line the drawer. 
A headline took his eye : “ The Naval Meeting at Kiel. 
Arrival of the British Squadron ” Extraordinarily in- 
congruous that looked to eyes that were now accustomed 
to such different items in the Morning Post! This was 
only dated June 24, yet it seemed part of something 
as remote and futile as his Uncle Henry’s docu- 
ments; an irresponsible echo from the Past. 

The letter in his pocket might also stand for some- 
thing just as remote, just as completely crowded out 
by weightier happenings. . . . 

But young Urquhart, keen as he was on those hap- 
penings, could not resign himself philosophically to 
forgetting the other.' Not yet . . . not entirely. . . . 

So when he had run the missing birth-certificate to 
earth under his mirror he turned again to the letter, 
and pondered over it. . . . 

Putting detail to detail; Eleanor’s preoccupations, 
the mischievous temperament of that other girl; Elea- 
nor’s once more flavourless letters to him in Wales, the 
things that Professor-Johnnie had been saying the other 
afternoon about forgeries and plagiarisms, that other 
girl’s sudden blush 

Seeing at last this letter of Miss Fay re’s as the key 
to all those other letters, purporting to come from 
^Eleanor, with that disturbingly unfamiliar note. 


238 


THE CALL TO ARMS 


He saw it all now. Of course. That was it. She — 
the secretary-girl — had written those others ! 

If that proved to be so, thought Ted, absently 
polishing the bowl of his pipe on his jacket-sleeve, it 
meant that all his hopes of discovering a new Eleanor 
were dashed to the ground. 

There was no “ new ” Eleanor. 

There remained only the cold-blooded little cousin 
whom he ought to marry, and the other girl who was 
going to marry another man. 

“Well! Couldn’t have a more thoroughly cheerless 
look-out than that! 99 

Still ! He’d be off soon. Off “ somewhere in France.” 
Somewhere, where he hoped it mightn’t seem to matter 
so frightfully much which girl a man is engaged to out 
of all those that he had left behind him. 

And he might make sure about that other ; quite sure. 

He slipped his pipe into his pocket again and turned 
quickly out of his room. 

At the head of the staircase, as Luck would have it, 
he encountered that other girl, Eleanor’s secretary. 

She came out of her room behind him. 

He stopped dead and wheeled round to face her. 

And she, with the letter to Cecil Bray in her hand, 
tilted her burnished head slightly to glance up at Ted 
Urquhart. She was thinking to herself, “M’well! 
You don’t look the kind of young man who would be 
gun-shy. So perhaps it isn 9 t that? Perhaps you feel 


THE CALL TO ARMS 


239 


you’ve other responsibilities to attend to? This lovely 
old Court of yours, and so on? Still! I should have 
thought you’d have liked to take a hand yourself in de- 
fending it from those Blonde Beasts of Huns? To know 
you had done something at least to stop them from tram- 
pling their charges all across its lawns, and from making 
bonfires of its old carved oak, and from throwing Mrs. 
Marrow’s little children, perhaps, into the flames ? For 
that’s the kind of thing they’d be doing in every Eng- 
lishman’s home at the present moment, if every young 
and fit Englishman had been the sort of slacker that you 
are ! ” 

Now, these comments, of course, Miss Fayre kept 
to herself, as far as the letter was concerned. But 
the whole spirit of them was made clear enough by her 
manner. It was allowed to inform her (extremely meek) 
enquiry as to whether Mr. Urquhart would be kind 
enough to tell her “ how you ought to address a Terri- 
torial Officer who had volunteered for Active Service; 
was it just Esquire, or did you, in time of war, put 
4 Lieutenant ’? ” 

He answered her briefly. 

He was perfectly conscious of that unuttered feminine 
fling at a defaulter so young and so able-bodied; he 
was also conscious that he could retaliate very com- 
pletely if he chose. 

She didn’t deserve to be so beautiful, he thought. 

She had the assurance to smile at him, and to say 


240 


THE CALL TO ARMS 


lightly, “ Please go on ; I mustn’t pass you on the stairs. 
It means a fight — that is, it means that we shall 
quarrel.” 

“ That would be a pity,” said young Urquhart 
shortly. 

He went down a step. Then he paused. 

“ One moment, Miss Fayre ” 

It was in his mind to go on, “ D’you mind coming 
out into the garden while we get something cleared up 
between us? . . . Yes; there is something I wanted 
to say. ... To begin with — You don’t look the kind 
of girl who’d forge. Why did you do it? ” 

But he thought better of it. After all, this was a 
thing he had to speak to her employer about first. 

Behind him the voice of the secretary said, just a 
little apprehensively, “Yes?” 

“ Oh — er — I only wanted to ask,” he said, “ if you 
knew where I should find Eleanor? ” 

“ She is in the drawing-room,” said Miss Fayre, and 
in her voice there might have been detected a note of 
relief mingled with some exasperation. 

He went to find Eleanor in the drawing-room. 


CHAPTER II 


THE WHITE FEATHER 

About the Court drawing-room that grey Army flannel 
still lay in drifts, shrouding the pinks and peaches and 
creams of the summery chintz, and heaping the soft 
dead-rose-coloured Aubusson carpet. On every chair 
were stacked green cardboard boxes, half-unpacked, 
with parcels of shirts, socks, mufflers, pyjamas, every 
sort of undergarment that the troops might, or might 
not require; all ordered as patterns by Miss Urquhart. 

The small, grey-gowned brunette herself was sitting 
in one of the window-seats with her back to the sun- 
bathed Terrace outside, bending those dark brows of 
hers over the complexities of a Balaclava helmet that 
she was going to knit, when her fiance came quietly in 
and stood before her. 

“ Eleanor,” he said. 

“ Twenty-four, twenty-five, twenty-SIX,” counted 
the absorbed Eleanor aloud over her knitting. “ Wait 
a minute. Drop five and then go on — Oh, Ted, mind, 
please! That’s the pattern for a soldier’s bed-jacket 
that you’ve got your foot on.” 

“ Sorry,” said the young man, stepping back off one 
of the perforated plans of tissue-paper that added their 
241 


242 


THE WHITE FEATHER 


litter to the other signs of toil. “ If you can spare me 
one minute ” 

“ Five, six, seven,” murmured Eleanor. 

— “ I came,” he said, rather more abruptly, “ to tell 
you something.” 

“Oh, yes?” said Eleanor, suddenly flurried, dis- 
mayed. 

She thought to herself, “ Oh dear ! Is this what 
Rosamond said, after all? Is he going to begin about 
those letters ? ” And she made a movement as if she 
would put the work away from her lap. There was a 
frightened little catch in her voice as she went on, 
“What is it, Ted? I’ll c-come into the office if you 
like, and get Miss Fayre to finish c-clearing up these 
b-b-b-bundles of stuff in here.” 

Young Urquhart reflected a little bitterly that his 
fiancee seemed able to rely upon Miss Fayre for doing 
plenty of her odd jobs; from tidying up her sewing to 
writing letters to the man she (Miss Fayre’s employer) 
had promised to marry. But he only hastened to say, 
“No; don’t trouble. I can tell you in here, it won’t 
take a minute. I might have told you before. It’s 
practically settled now. I’ve asked them to make what 
use they can of me for Active Service.” 

Eleanor looked up at him wide-eyed. 

“Active Service?” she echoed blankly. “What? 
You d-don’t mean you’re going out too, to this per- 
fectly horrible War?” 


THE WHITE FEATHER 


44 I hope so.” 

“ But, Ted,” objected his fiancee , “ you aren’t in the 
Army.” 

44 1 hope to be,” said the young fellow. 

He went on to explain to the girl, in as few words as 
possible, his plans. 

He concluded, 44 1 hope this won’t upset Uncle Henry 
or — you very much.” 

Eleanor shook her dark head with a sigh that was 
partly of reassurance. After all, that about the letters 
seemed to be a false alarm. This other was very 
startling, but it was Ted’s affair. 

44 Well, I am afraid Father will think it such a pity. 
He considers all this fighting is so unnecessary,” said 
Miss Urquhart, taking up her work again, 44 and really 
if you come to think of it, Ted, so it is. (Nine, ten, 
eleven ; drop five again. ) Why couldn’t everything be 
settled by Arbitration? It seems so absurd , not. In 
the Twentieth Century and all, when we ought at least 
to have outgrown Brute Force, as Octavia Fabian says. 
She took me to such a splendid lecture about it not so 
long ago.” The memory of that lecture restored the 
authoritativeness to Eleanor’s sedate little voice as she 
concluded, 44 1 suppose you’ve never read anything by 
a man called Normal Angell, Ted?” 

44 Yes, I have,” said Ted. 

44 Well, then, you see what I think about it all : 
wasting the wealth of nations on great hulking armies 


THE WHITE FEATHER 


244 

and plunging innocent people into poverty and suffer- 
ing, all for no reason! I do think (five, six, seven) that 
it’s so wrong ” 

“ Well, Eleanor, I’m afraid we shan’t agree on that 
if we go on talking about it for ever,” put in the young 
man temperately. “ I think I’m going, with luck, what- 
ever happens.” 

A pause, occupied by Eleanor’s half-whispered, 
“ Cast on ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen ” 

Then, raising his voice a trifle, young Urquhart 

began again : “ And when I come back But that’ll 

be time enough to talk about that then, perhaps. There 
are a good many things that we shall have to leave 
standing as they are for the present, Eleanor.” 

He meant to speak quietly, even casually. But his 
tone betrayed something of what he was feeling. Elea- 
nor, who was not usually susceptible to “ tones,” but 
whose uneasy conscience had left her rather “ jumpy,” 
took the point. She laid her work down again, and 
glanced quickly at him. He was looking away, over 
her head, across the Terrace and the lawn outside, and 
the expression on his face betrayed, even to her, more 
than his tone had done. 

Eleanor felt she could not endure any more surprises, 
any more suspense over this thing. 

She rose and stood before him, small and sallow and 
nervous. With that little scared quaver in her voice 


THE WHITE FEATHER 


245 


again she began : “ Ted ! What 4 things ’ ? D-do you 
m-m-mean about ” 

44 Ah, never mind what about just now,” the young 
man said quickly. 44 As I tell you, it doesn’t so much 
matter ” 

44 Yes, but it does. B-b-because I’ve been very un- 
c-c-comfortable about it! And I c-c-can’t let you go 
like this. I must tell you that I think I know what 
you m-m-m-m-mean,” protested his fiancee , in a flurry 
of stuttering. 44 Is it about some 1-1-letters ? ” 

44 No, no, don’t let’s worry about anything now.” 

44 Yes, but I must. D-d-do let me exp-explain ” 

she pleaded. 

The authoritativeness was melting away from her; 
so was that feeling of superiority which it was so easy 
to acquire in a lecture-hall surrounded by Octavia 
Fabian and her set. And as there were occasions when 
Miss Fayre craved for the unabashed fluency of the 
Principal Boy to back her up, so there were moments 
when Miss Urquhart longed for the moral support of a 
College-educated woman. It was not to hand. Help- 
lessly Eleanor rushed upon the dangerous subject which 
had loomed above her ever since that morning of 
the conversation with her secretary over the pot-pourri. 
She made a little surrendering gesture with her hands 
as she cried: 

44 It is about those l-last four or five 1-letters you got 
from me, isn’t it? I d -did make Rosamond Fayre write 


246 THE WHITE FEATHER 

them. I am so dreadfully sorry. But, Ted, I was so 
busy ” 

“ All right, all right,” he said, looking away. “ Never 
mind now.” 

But the small dark girl trembling before him would 
go on faltering out her trite, childish words of explana- 
tion : 

“ 1 n-never can write letters, any letters ! I’d rather 
do accounts, sew, anything. And I hadn’t ever seen 
you, you know ! And I didn’t see why Rosamond 
shouldn’t. She said you’d find out. H-how did you? ” 

“ Oh, by putting two and two together in one way 
and another, I suppose,” he said listlessly. Nothing — 
except the Big Job — seemed worth wasting much in- 
terest over just now. Still, he asked, “Would you mind 
telling me how long the thing went on? ” 

“ I’ll l-look up in my notebook,” returned Eleanor 
with a little gulp. “ I’ve k-kept the dates of all letters 
sent ” 

“ Never mind the dates. Which was the first letter 
that she — that Miss Fay re wrote? D’you happen to 
know what was in it? ” 

“ Yes, I do,” returned the engaged girl. “ The first 
that Rosamond wrote was the one with those rose-leaves 
in it. Perhaps you d-d-didn’t notice? ” 

“ I noticed them,” said young Urquhart drily. 
“ Miss Fayre send those? ” 

“ No, no. I sent those, Ted,” replied conscientious 


THE WHITE FEATHER 


247 

Eleanor, feeling constrained to add, 44 But she said I 
ought to! She s-seemed to think that people abroad 
would like anything that came from an English garden, 
and so I p-p-p-put in those p-p-p-petals from the rose 
that she was wearing at the time.” 

In spite of himself he felt he must take her up here. 

He echoed, 44 4 She ’ was wearing? ” 

44 Yes ; b-because I hadn’t a flower on, Ted,” 
apologised his fiancee. 44 I’m afraid it was Rosamond’s 
rose.” 

“ And her letters. She wrote all the letters after 
that. Well ! ” he said slowly, 44 Miss Fay re copies your 
handwriting, Eleanor, remarkably well.” 

He was surprised to hear Eleanor reply : 

44 Oh, no, she doesn’t. I copy hers. I m-m-m-mean, 
I used to when I was at school with her,” explained 
Miss Urquhart, looking at the moment not unlike the 
prim little monitress of her class who was listening to 
a scolding for some only just discovered fault. 44 And 
I kept it up, and it comes quite naturally to me now to 
write exactly like Rosamond Fayre, whenever I do write 
anything. That was long before there were any letters 
to you to write. The handwriting had n-n-nothing to 
do with it, except that it gave me the idea that Rosa- 
mond might write any letter for me, if I were specially 
busy!” 

44 1 see,” said Ted Urquhart smoothly. 44 And per- 
haps you didn’t even need to see the letters.” 


248 


THE WHITE FEATHER 


“ M-m-m~most of them I did,” pleaded his fiancee , her 
little brown hands working with nervousness. “ I read 
n-n-nearly all of them, Ted ” 

He was still looking blankly away from her. He 
said, apparently to himself, “At least it wasn’t delib- 
erate forgery, then.” 

“ Oh, no. P-please don’t call it that. She s-s-said 
you would call it that! Rosamond said you’d be most 
frightfully angry with her and m-me and both of us,” 
blurted out Eleanor distressfully. She glanced about 
the stately drawing-room that was so unspeakably use- 
ful for her gatherings; she’d meant to hold Guild of 
Needlework Meetings in this big room all through the 
Autumn. Was this the end of all those plans? Every 
trace of colour had left the small strained face as 
Eleanor said, “ I sup-pup-pose it’s quite natural that 
you should feel you couldn’t forgive me for this.” 

“What?” he said, as if jerking himself away from 
thoughts that had been far enough away from this 
agitated little dusky-headed creature who stood there 
almost pathetically at his mercy; his wife-to-be whom 
he had never loved, could never love. 

But he found it no difficulty to speak quite gently 
to her now. 

“ It’s quite all right, Eleanor,” he said soothingly^ 
lightly touching her compact little shoulder. “ Please 
don’t look so worried about it. I wish you wouldn’t. 
Really it was nothing. You hadn’t seen me. What 


THE WHITE FEATHER 


249 

did it matter? Anyhow it doesn’t matter now. 
Nothing does, particularly — I mean nothing does, 
honestly,” said Ted Urquhart. “ The whole secret’s 
out now, such as it is, and — please, please don’t let’s 
have any rot about — any talk about forgiveness and 
so on! 

“ Let’s talk about something else,” he went on hur- 
riedly, as Eleanor with a little gasp of relief took out 
her handkerchief and blew her nose. “ By the way, 
I’m going to tell Uncle Henry now about my having 
applied to the R.E. Special Reserve. But I want that 
kept dark for the present. Don’t say anything about 
it, if you don’t mind, to — er — anybody else in the 
house.” 

“ Very well, Ted,” said his fiancee gratefully enough, 
as the young man left her. “ I won’t say a word.” 

She had, however, something upon the other subject 
to say to her secretary. 

It was said that evening, after Miss Urquhart had 
dressed for dinner in a Lady Mayoressy-looking gown 
of mauve satin, the sight of which upon a brunette 
afflicted Rosamond almost to remonstrance. 

Rosamond herself was stitching up a rent in the over- 
skirt of her long-suffering old black ninon rag when 
Miss Urquhart tapped at her door and entered, bearing 
herself with more than her usual dignity. 

“ Been having a row with him,” Rosamond guessed 


250 


THE WHITE FEATHER 


from the aggressive tilt of Eleanor’s chin, the line of 
her small mouth ; but Eleanor soon put her right about 
the origin of this added stateliness. 

It was triumph. 

“ Rosamond, I must tell you,” began her employer, 
“ that I have spoken to my fiance , and explained to him 
all about those letters.” 

She paused for effect, while Rosamond stood, struck 
motionless in the act of putting in a stitch. Eleanor 
added: “And you were quite, quite wrong about its 
making him so angry ! ” 

“What?” In her surprise Rosamond dropped her 
thimble and her reel of black silk; and she forgot to 
pick them up. She stared at the other girl and ex- 
claimed, “Wasn’t he angry, then?” 

“ Not in the least,” said Miss Urquhart impressively. 
She might have been less ponderous had she not felt the 
need of regaining her own place in her self-esteem. She 
had been rather badly frightened; and she had shown 
it. “ He quite understood. He said it didn’t matter 
at all. So that needn’t worry us — you any more.” 

She gave a little nod and went out, still holding the 
dusky head in a very straight line with the back of the 
purple satin waist-belt. 

Miss Fayre, left to herself, gasped, “ Well ! I never 
heard of such an extraordinary young man as this of 
Eleanor’s in the whole course of my life! Wasn’t 
angry! Said it didn’t matter ! Oh, how differently he’s 


THE WHITE FEATHER 


251 


turned out from what he seemed to be like, that time so 
long ago, in France. It just shows that one can’t put 
any faith in anything nowadays, not even in one’s first 
impressions of young men ! I suppose all this is just 
of a piece with his not 6 minding ’ staying at home and 
letting other people do his fighting for him. Why, he’s 
just a ” 

She dropped the mended flounce of her frock and 
primmed her red mouth into its most contemptuous 
curve. She turned to the door, thinking, “ Doesn’t 
seem to occur to him that he ought to volunteer, great, 
tall, sinewy waster ! It’s enough to make any one feel 
angry with him. And he isn’t even man enough to be 
angry with me! ” 

Here again Rosamond Fayre was quite wrong. 

For young Urquhart, who had found it easy enough 
to be forbearing to the apologetic Eleanor, felt furious 
beyond words with the girl whom Eleanor had employed. 
He found no earthly excuse for her; none! He would 
have liked to tell her so, the minx and hussy, who had 
been laughing at him all this while, in her sleeve — or so 
he thought. Of course he wouldn’t be able to say a 
word. . . . Words, however, can so often be super- 
seded by other forms of self-expression. 

The first half-glance at Eleanor’s “ waster ” of a Ted 
in the dining-room assured Rosamond that he was 
silently and coldly raging. Not at his fiancee. To 


252 


THE WHITE FEATHER 


Eleanor he talked, during dinner, brightly and casually 
enough. But at any word put into the conversation 
by the white-throated blonde who sat opposite to him 
at table, the young man became silent. And the casual 
way in which he averted his eyes conveyed more anger 
than the most furious glance above that group of plump 
white china-limbed Loves that held up their burden of 
grapes and nectarines in the centre of the table. 

“ Frightfully annoyed with me because I’m in the 
secret of how off-handedly his sweetheart treated him,” 
translated Rosamond to herself. 

Then the secretary-girl almost forgot that question 
of the letters she’d written, over which young Urquhart 
fumed and smarted at the moment. She was wondering, 
still wondering over the question of the War and of 
why this splendid-looking specimen of English man- 
hood was still a civilian at home. 

“ He doesn’t think much of me ; but I am sure I 
think even less of him,” reflected the girl. And if Ted 
Urquhart didn’t at that moment realise what is the 
attitude of the feminine and full-blooded young woman 
towards the Non-combatant-from-Choice, it was cer- 
tainly not Rosamond’s fault, as she, in turn, averted 
her own blue eyes. 

“ Won’t he go because of Eleanor?” she thought. 
cc But lots of the men who went out were engaged and 
got married at the same time as they ordered their 
Service-kit. Won’t Eleanor let him go? Pooh! — 


THE WHITE FEATHER 


253 


has he got other duties at home that are important 
enough to keep him back? What could they possibly 
be? ” 

. . another chauffeur as good, in Ransom’s place ; 
oh, yes,” Ted Urquhart was saying to his uncle. “ Find 
one easily ” 

“ Well, that’s not enough to stay at home for, then,” 
thought Rosamond Fay re, crumbling her dinner-roll. 

“ And I’ve gone all over the bailiff’s books for you 
this afternoon, Uncle Henry ” 

“ That’s not so very important either ! ” pondered 
Rosamond, and waited, mocking, for the next remark. 
Perhaps that would be about something more important 
than the struggle for his country’s supremacy? 

“ They sent over from the village to ask if we’d spare 
some vegetables and pears and things for Eleanor’s 
Refugees’ Convalescent Home,” young Urquhart was 
saying. “ As Marrow wasn’t there to decide, I said 
they could come over to-morrow with hampers, and that 
I’d help ’em to pick ” 

“ Not as important as fighting to save people from 
becoming refugees ! ” commented Rosamond, silently. 

But actually she said nothing further until dinner 
was over. 

In the drawing-room Eleanor came to the chair where 
her secretary sat absorbed in the evening’s news from 
those Belgian battle-fields, and held out a hank of thick, 
cocoa-coloured knitting-wool. 


254 


THE WHITE FEATHER 


“ Rosamond, I want you to help me with this if you 
don’t mind,” she said, with some of that extra dignity 
still lingering in her manner. “ You hold it, please, 
while I wind.” 

Rosamond, dropping the Pall Mali Gazette , held out 
her supple white hands. 

“ But isn’t this a job for Mr. Ted Urquhart?” she 
suggested, with a twinkle. “ Some men seem to like 
holding wool, don’t they? — of course it depends who 
it’s for ” 

66 Ted is having his coffee with my father,” vouch- 
safed Eleanor, beginning to wind her wool, “ in the 
study.” 

“ They seem to have plenty to talk about,” com- 
mented Rosamond, mildly, turning first one pretty 
ringless hand and then the other as the wool slipped 
round them. 

u Yes,” agreed Eleanor, winding. “ I know he had 
something particular to tell father.” 

Her small mouth tightened into its line of disapproval 
as she thought again of Ted’s intention to volunteer for 
Active Service. 

Probably just because all the other young men who’d 
been at school with him seemed to be doing the same 
thing! Eleanor was very much afraid that she knew 
what really intelligent people would call Ted — and the 
others. Yes, even if he hadn’t been a soldier to start 
with, he had the — the sort of brand of it, born on him. 


THE WHITE FEATHER 


255 


Ted Urquhart was what was always called , 44 The Usual, 
Brainless, Army Type.” 

Really, as Octavia Fabian always said, these men 
were like sheep in the way they followed one another 
along conventional lines. It was 44 the thing ” to be 
44 keen ” on the War. Instead of thinking things out 
for himself, and letting Eleanor tell him what those 
Peace Society people always proposed, advised. . . . 

She wondered what her father would say. 

44 Needless ! Needless folly, the whole thing,” her 
father was saying at that moment in that book-lined 
mausoleum of a study of his, where Ted Urquhart had 
once sat waiting for his first sight of the girl to whom 
he was pledged. 

The young man sat now in the chair he had occupied 
then. His impatient eyes were fixed on the polished 
floor as he listened quietly to his uncle’s view of the 
case. 

44 Disarmament. . . . We must abolish these national 
antagonisms, so childish, my dear Ted ! . . . Any one 
would think we were still not far advanced from the 
stage of the savage with the club ! . . . Deplorable, to 
me, these. ... You remind me of your father. . . . 
I can only say you remind me of my poor dear brother 
Clive. . . . He’d be here with us at this moment had 
it not been for that old wound in which he took that 
chill ” 


256 


THE WHITE FEATHER 


“ And if he were here,” put in young Ted, as the 
remembered, smiling, adventurer’s face of General 
Urquhart rose before him, 64 he wouldn’t try to dissuade 
me, Sir. He’d be trying to get them to take him too.” 

44 Ah ! It wouldn’t surprise me. It wouldn’t surprise 
me. . . . Poor dear fellow. . . . He was good for an- 
other twenty years . . . might have died peaceably in 
his bed at home here,” murmured the old scholar, as 
one who quotes the whole duty of man 44 Incurably 
wrong-headed ideas he had, though. He was one of 
those people who think that, without War, heroism 
would decay. The qualities of unselfishness and sacrifice 
and strenuousness would rust away, he used to say. He 
said a War went through a country like a fume of dis- 
infectant through a rose-tree with green fly on it. 4 A 
beautiful Cleanser,’ he called it . . . poor dear Clive! ” 
The son of this deluded Urquhart crossed one long 
leg over another, cleared his throat, and raising his 
close-cropped head, said, 44 Well, Uncle Henry, one 

can’t help what one inherits ” 

44 Inherit — Yes ! And just as I was so pleased to 
see you back here, my dear boy, settling down in your 
inheritance ” 

44 Lord ! I didn’t mean that ! I ” 

44 1 did,” persisted the elder Urquhart. 44 It was the 
greatest relief to me, Ted. I felt ... no further re- 
sponsibilities . . . Eleanor and I, provided for, . . . 
while depriving you of none of your rights . . . she 


THE WHITE FEATHER 


257 


and you . . . getting on so well together. An ideal 
arrangement! I had hoped to see you and the child 

married this autumn, perhaps. And now ” He 

shook his grey locks. 46 Suppose anything happened to 
you ” 

44 1 have arranged for that contingency,” said Elea- 
nor’s -fiance . 44 She will have The Court and every^ 

thing.” 

But again the grey elf locks were shaken. 44 1 guessed 
so. But it will not be the same to me, Ted. I had 
always liked the idea that she would be mistress here 
— as your wife. I ... You know I didn’t always get 
on too well with your poor dear father,” old Mr. Urqu- 
hart murmured on. 44 All strife is childish, of course, 
and — it always seemed to me as if it would put an end 
to its having ever been, if Clive’s son and my child 
were to marry. But if you go — — ” 

Here he suddenly raised the grey head. He spoke 
more quickly and decisively. He said something that 
gave young Urquhart a shock of surprise mingled with 
dismay. 

44 My boy, would it not be possible to marry Eleanor 
before you go P ” 

There was a moment’s silence. 

Then Ted Urquhart said quietly, 44 You mean almost 
at once? ” 

44 If you expect to go so soon. Could it be managed ? 
I see constantly, in these dreadful newspapers,” put in 


258 


THE WHITE FEATHER 


the elder man, wistfully, 66 notices of officers’ weddings 
being hurried on, ‘ on account of the War.’ If you 
and Eleanor could be quietly married before you left — 
it would set my mind at rest, Ted ” 

Ted, after another moment’s pause, said, 

“ Certainly. That is, of course, I’ll consult Eleanor. 
If she consents ” 

“ It would be a weight off my mind, my dear boy.” 

“ Then I will see her about it,” said Ted Urquhart. 

He rose and went out to the drawing-room with 
a half-conscious urge to get this thing settled at 
once. 

But, he soon saw, it could not be to-night. 

Eleanor’s usual excuse, it seemed, must hold. A 
glance told him that she was again “ so busy ! ” 

She was winding wool off the hands of that other girl, 
into fat, cocoa-coloured balls. 

Ted Urquhart, standing above them for a moment, 
saw the secretary-girl’s face suddenly quiver and glow; 
she broke into a low but distinct and whole-heartedly 
amused girlish chuckle. 

Eleanor said, “ What are you laughing at, Rosa- 
mond? ” 

Rosamond murmured demurely, “ Oh, nothing ; only 
something quite silly that I’d just remembered out of 
some book.” 

She guessed that the young man who walked sharply 


THE WHITE FEATHER 259 

to the other end of the room would have given his ears 
to hear what this quotation might be. 

But she did not mean to tell Eleanor. 

It was an extract from Artemus Ward: 

“ I met a young man who said he’d be damned if 
he’d go to the War. He was sitting on a barrel, and 
was indeed a loathsome object.” 

Mr. Ted Urquhart hadn’t even the grace to look a 
“ loathsome object 1 ” 


CHAPTER in 


THE DAY 

The next morning, a rather grey and chilly Sunday, 
Ted Urquhart came to Eleanor in her little “ office ” 
and asked her, with simple directness, whether she would 
mind fixing a day, as soon as possible, for their mar- 
riage. 

Eleanor, obviously startled, looked at him over the 
desk at which she sat. He had drawn a chair up to 
face her. 

“Soon? H-How do you mean, Ted?” she asked. 
“ I thought you might be going away so soon.” 

“ So I may. That was the reason,” he told her. “ I 
mean if it’s not — if it’s not inconveniencing you very 
much, Eleanor — that I wish you’d see your way to mar- 
rying me, just quietly, you know, in the little church in 
the village, perhaps, before I’m ordered off.” 

“ Oh ! ” said Eleanor, with a little gasp, “ I never 
thought of that.” 

“ I know it’s abrupt,” said the young man. “ But 
you know lots of people in the Services are fixing it up 
this way just now. I believe they’re making it much 
easier for couples to get special licenses, or to get mar- 
ried without any banns, and . . . and so forth. It 
260 


THE DAY 261 

— er — I — er — Well! It seems under the circumstances 
rather a — a sensible plan, I think — if we were ” 

Here he checked himself. He had nearly used the 
unfortunate expression “ turned off! ” But it is 
only the joyous bridal of which a grim joke may be 
made. 

He altered it tritely to 

“ — married before I had to leave you, Eleanor.” 

Eleanor asked, still in that startled tone, “ Does 
Father think so? ” 

“ Oh, yes! Yes. Uncle Henry and I talked it over 
last night,” said Ted Urquhart, leaning his cleft chin 
on his brown hand and his elbow on his knee as he 
sat a little forward, not looking at his fiance . “Your 
father quite . . . agreed with me. I think he — he 
wishes it too, Eleanor.” 

“Oh, does he?” murmured Eleanor. “Yes, I sup- 
pose he would.” 

Evidently she was still very much surprised, almost 
dazed, he thought, by the suddenness of this plan. 
Evidently she scarcely knew what to say. 

There was only one thing that Ted Urquhart hoped 
she wouldn't say. 

Namely, that she did not wish their marriage to 
take place before he went. 

For he wished it. He wished it, as he put it incoher- 
ently to himself, over and done with. He wanted to do 
his duty by his people — and then to clear ! He wanted 


262 


THE DAY 


it settled for good and all. Also — he wanted to do all 
he could to rid himself of the power of an obsession that 
tortured him still, however he fought it down. That 
golden-haired witch! That mocking girl who could 
speak tenderly enough to the other man — the man she 
was going to marry! Ted Urquhart could feel furious 
with her. He could tell himself all her faults. (She 
was vain, flippant, irresponsible, insolent!) He could 
snub and ignore her, and put aside for days the thought 
of her. He could school himself not to look. But at 
the bottom of his heart he could not yet forget that 
fatal apprehension under which he’d been when first he 
met her; that delusion that she, and none other, was 
intended to be his. He must forget it. He must not 
run any risk of coming back, at the end of other fight- 
ing, to begin that struggle over again. 

“ If I were married,” thought the young man in his 
desperation, “ it would have to mean the end of all 
that.'’ 

So, anxiously, he watched Eleanor’s little dark, re- 
strained face, waiting for her answer. 

It came, quiet and matter-of-fact. 

“ Very well, Ted.” 

“You mean you will, Eleanor?” he took up quite 
eagerly. “That you’ll let me settle it up at once?” 

“ Yes.” 

“ Good,” said young Urquhart, with a sigh of relief. 
“Now, the question is, what day will suit you? ” 


THE DAY 263 

“ Oh — how much longer do you think you will be 
here?” asked his fiancee. 

“ A matter of a week or so, I expect,” he told her. 
“ Ten days, I should think, at most.” 

“ Ten days,” murmured Eleanor. 44 Now, just let 
me look at my fixtures, please, Ted, and I will see what 
I am doing this week.” 

She opened a desk-drawer to her right, took out a 
neat leather-bound book and began turning over the 
pages, murmuring — 

44 Sunday to-day. Monday I’m motoring up to town 
for all day. Tuesday, the Reservists’ wives here. Wed- 
nesday — I know there was something on Wednesday, 
but I must have forgotten to note it. I’ll ask Rosamond. 
Thursday I promised to let Miss Fabian come 
down again to give her lecture to the Reservists’ 
wives ” 

Ted Urquhart sat, his glance straying about the 
small, neat room so full of a girl’s kindly preoccupa- 
tions with her poorer sisters. His impatient eyes, 
rather listless now, rested on the framed 44 groups ” of 
uniformed creche-nurses with babies; on the files, the 
long red row of Whitaker’s almanacks, the small side- 
table with the typewriter. . . . He was morosely glad 
that his wife would always have so much to occupy her. 
It would at least keep her from missing what he could 
never give her. Would she think of missing it? Would 
she, in her queer little matter-of-fact way, imagine that 


264 


THE DAY 


he was, naturally, as self-contained as she herself? Or 
did she just think, vaguely, that “ men were like 
that ”? 

He watched her. And he wondered whether any 
other girl on earth would have taken just like this the 
function that used to be called in her grandmother’s 
time “ naming the Happy Day. 9 ’ 

She had finished turning over the leaves of that little 
book. She looked up for a moment as she said com- 
posedly, “ Friday is free. I could marry you, if you 
liked, on Friday, Ted.” 

“ Oh, thanks so much,” said the young man quickly. 
“ It’s really awfully good of you not to mind a rush 
like this — a wedding without — without any of the 
things a girl expects — a big party, and a trousseau, 
and a ” 

He stopped again. 

He felt he could not use the word that belongs to 
courtship as naturally as “ Dearest ” and “ Darling ” 
belong; the pretty word “Honeymoon.” Not here. 
Not now. 

He went on — “ without any sort of a wedding-trip 
abroad, or anything. I suppose ” 

“What?” said the bride-to-be, as he paused once 
more. 

“ I suppose you’ll let me take you up to town for 
the week-end, won’t you?” said her fiance rather hur- 
riedly. “ That is, if I haven’t already got my orders. 


THE DAY 265 

We could — go round and look up various people, to 
say 4 Good-bye,’ you know ” 

There rose up in his mind the relentless suggestion 
that the bride to whom he would presently be saying 
“Good-bye” would be very different from the usual 
(“ Brainless, Army,”) type of the soldier’s young wife; 
the girl who smiles resolutely through her tears, and 
whose agony at parting is kept at bay by her pride 
and joy at sending forth her man to fight. 

Eleanor would feel no pride; nothing but the Fabian- 
instilled conviction that it was “ a useless, wasteful 
risk of life,” . . . and “ wrong ”/ 

She herself was always so anxious to do what was 
“ right ” — even by him. 

“ Just as you like, Ted,” she said. 

She fastened the little engagement-book and opened 
the drawer in which it was kept. 

“ Thank you,” said the bridegroom-to-be again. 
And he rose. 

He knew what he ought to do now. 

Up to now there had been no word of endearment 
between this engaged couple, nothing but her Christian 
name and his. Up to now there had been no caress 
but that twice-daily cousinly peck on the cheek. But 
now — when she’d just promised to become his wife 
within the week! Oh, it would be too cruelly casual 
to let the occasion pass absolutely unmarked except by 
a cool word of thanks — 


266 


THE DAY 


He drew a step nearer to the little stiff, grey-gowned 
figure with the dark head bent over the drawer of her 
desk. 

He began, awkwardly, 44 Well ? 9 

He ought to call her “ Dear ”! 

Why should it come so ludicrously hard? 

46 Well, Eleanor,” he said, “ you’ve been uncommonly 
kind to me about all this.” 

A nice object-lesson he was, he thought savagely, 
for any young man who considered that which girl 
he got engaged to wasn’t, after all, a matter of para- 
mount importance! But it was too late to think of 
that now. . . . 

Eleanor’s face was still averted as she slipped the 
book into the drawer. 

Clumsily, abruptly, he closed his own fingers over 
her other little brown hand as it lay on the desk. 

He’d got to say 44 Aren’t you going to let me have a 
kiss to clinch it ? ” 

Every fibre in him seemed to draw back in revolt from 
what he had to do. But, dash it, he must ! 

He held her hand for another horrible second. . . . 

And at that moment the door of the office opened, 
and there entered Miss Rosamond Fayre, dressed for 
Church, and carrying a large sheaf of white Bride- 
lilies for the flower-service. 

The scent of them trailed behind the girl as she 


THE DAY 267 

walked quickly through the office and into the drawing- 
room beyond. 

Eleanor, hastily withdrawing her hand, called, “ Oh, 
Rosamond ” 

But the secretary-girl had passed through the draw- 
ing-room and into the hall beyond. 

“ Fetch her — just ask Miss Fay re to come to me, 
please, Ted. I want her,” said Eleanor, putting an end 
to this interview on a bright conclusive note. “ She 
might as well, before I forget, send off the notice of 
this wedding to the Morning Post 


CHAPTER IV 


“ ON ACCOUNT OF THE WAR ” 

There was no mention of its being “ on account of the 
War 99 in that announcement that “ the marriage ar- 
ranged between Edward Clive Urquhart and Eleanor , 
only child of Henry Urquhart , Esquire , of Urquhart’s 
Court , Kent , would take place very quietly 99 on the 
Friday of that same week. 

Ted Urquhart, boyishly sulking (as older men than 
he will sulk), determined that Miss Fay re should hear 
nothing of his volunteering until he’d actually got his 
orders. 

And Eleanor said nothing. 

So that Miss Fayre, the secretary-girl, was left won- 
dering over the cause of this unexpectedly abrupt ar- 
rangement. 

Why were not Eleanor and her dear Ted, to whom 
the War meant apparently nothing but a crowding of 
the newspapers with one monotonous subject — why 
weren’t they going to have a big wedding and a recep- 
tion with scarlet-and-white tents on the great green 
lawn where Eleanor’s Hen-party had gathered? and 
Eleanor was leaving herself no time to get her things ! 
She said she wasn’t getting “ things.” Truly they 
268 


“ ON ACCOUNT OF THE WAR ” 


269 


were the most unbelievable couple who had ever an- 
nounced their intention of getting married 44 without 
any fuss.” 

44 4 Fuss ’ means such different things to different 
people,” reflected Rosamond Fayre. 44 To me fuss 
would mean asking all the people I’d never liked to 
come in a body and stare at me while I made embarras- 
sing mistakes over the Marriage-Service. Eleanor calls 
4 fuss ’ any attempt at getting pretty new frocks ! 
Well, even a young man who’s strong and fit and says 
he’ll be damned if he’ll go to the War isn’t any more 
surprising than a young woman who doesn’t take any 
interest in wedding-garments ! ” 

Such interest as was taken in this sudden wedding 
seemed to be supplied by old Mr. Urquhart. It was 
he who stipulated that since all the Mrs. Edward Urqu- 
harts since before the time of the Romney had been 
wedded in white, Eleanor must follow suit. Also Elea- 
nor, though there would be no guest to see her, must 
wear the veil of old Limerick lace that had decked her 
mother’s bridal. He fetched it himself from its casket 
of cedar-wood and brought it to the drawing-room 
and to the Urquhart engaged pair. And he would have 
thrown it over Eleanor’s little black blot of a head, to 
try the effect; but here Rosamond Fayre, bringing 
in a note of thanks for Eleanor’s signature, inter- 
vened. 

44 Oh, but she mustn’t try on 4 the ’ veil,” said her 


270 


“ ON ACCOUNT OF THE WAR ” 


secretary, smiling, “before ‘the’ day, Mr. Urquhart; 
it’s so unlucky ! ” 

“ Rosamond always has some proverb about 
‘ Luck,’ ” said Eleanor. “ Or about what something 
‘ means ’ ! ” 

Ted Urquhart thought, “ Yes. Last time she spoke 
to me it was to say what passing a person on the stairs 
meant ! ” 

“ Ah, my dear Miss Fay re, how refreshing it is to 
find a girl still holding to all the little decorative 
feminine superstitions ! ” sighed the elder Urquhart. 
“ Were I even twenty years younger, and you ten years 
older, I should venture to beg you to wear ‘ the ’ Urqu- 
hart veil on ‘the’ day yourself. You would remind 
us of — ah — the nymph Arethusa smiling through the 
spray of the brook that engulfed her! You would look 
like ” 

Here Ted Urquhart, muttering some improvised ex- 
cuse about a telephone-call, got up and went out of 
the room. His uncle presently followed him ; leaving 
the bride-to-be and Rosamond with the filmy folds of 
that Limerick lace spread out between them. 

Eleanor tossed her end of the soft veil on to her 
secretary’s lap. 

“ Fold it up again, please,” she said, rather 
brusquely, “ and put it into the bottom drawer of my 
wardrobe.” 

Rosamond folded the lace and then rose, holding it 


“ ON ACCOUNT OF THE WAR ” 


271 


across her long arm. In her eyes was the sparkle of 
thriving rebellion. For now the secretary-girl had 
come to hate her surroundings. 

She resented these so-superior Urquharts, who took 
it upon themselves, forsooth, to represent that civilisa- 
tion for which other men were leaving home and com- 
fort with a cheer, were tramping, unwashed and 
footsore and hungry, the roads of France, were fighting 
against odds, were giving up their young and joyous 
lives. . . . Why, sometimes she could not help realising 
that those valuable English lives were only lost thanks 
to the other stay-at-home, pacific English of the Urqu- 
hart type. . . . Yes I They who wouldn’t listen! 
They who refused to prepare ! They who caused to 
be looked upon as unnecessary or contemptible that 
career which has been rightly called “ The Lordliest 
Life on Earth! ” These people were as truly “ the 
Enemy ” as Germany had ever been. England’s 
strength had been sapped in English homes like Urqu- 
hart’s Court. 

Rosamond hated this Court. . . . She loathed this 
sluggish little back-water in Kent. . . . 

She must get away to where she could feel the throb 
and stir of her country’s indignant heart, her own 
thrilling in sympathy. 

She spoke upon an impulse. (i Eleanor, is there 
anything else you want me to do for you — upstairs? 
Before I go to pack? ” 


272 “ ON ACCOUNT OF THE WAR ” 

Eleanor, in the sofa corner, looked up at her some- 
what severely. 

“Pack? I haven’t asked you to pack anything for 
me, Rosamond.” 

“ No. They’re my own boxes that I want to pack,” 
replied the secretary-girl evenly. “ I supposed that 
you wouldn’t be needing me any more now ” 

“ Oh, but ! ” 

“ — and I’ve been wanting to ask you if you could 
spare me at once, instead of my waiting here any 
longer.” 

“ Why ? ” asked Eleanor bluntly. “ I don’t ask you 
to go just because I’m to get married. I shall be going 
on with everything, just the same.” 

“ I know. I imagined you would be,” said Rosamond 
demurely, looking down at her and then away about 
the room. “But — I think I would rather go.” 

“ But — quite lately, you spoke as if you would be 
so s-s-sorry to leave the Court. This,” said Miss 
Urquhart, “ is new, isn’t it? ” 

“ Yes, I suppose it is,” murmured Rosamond. 

Then she lifted her bright head and looked full at 
the other girl sitting there among the mellow chintz 
cushions, backed by that stately, complacent room with 
its Chippendale and china, its prints, its whole air of 
“ Nothing can touch , nothing change me” And sud- 
denly it seemed as if the antipathy that had smouldered 
so long between them flashed into a flame. 


“ ON ACCOUNT OF THE WAR ” 


m 


Rosamond cried: 44 No! No, this isn’t anything new. 
I ought to have gone away before. It isn’t worth it. 
We — — We don’t get on. We’re such different kinds, 
Eleanor. It’s been an armed neutrality, all the time. 
Hasn’t it? ” 

44 Certainly not. On my s-s-side,” retorted Eleanor 
Urquhart angrily, 44 there has been n-n-nothing 4 armed.’ 
I hate any idea of quarrelling or — — ” 

44 Then I must go,” said Rosamond desperately, 44 or 
we shall quarrel.” 

44 But why? What about? ” 

44 Nothing. Everything. The War, mostly. Yes, 
the War. That must be — that’s what has made every- 
thing different, I suppose,” cried Rosamond hurriedly. 
44 1 can’t feel that there’s all that going on outside — 
while I live peacefully on here among a set of people 
who don’t care, who don’t understand. It’s an atmos- 
phere that stifles any one who really cares. I want to 
be somewhere else ! I want to get something else to 
do.” 

44 Very well,” said Eleanor, coldly displeased. 

44 I’m sorry ” 

44 It doesn’t matter,” said Eleanor stiffly. 44 1 shall 
have to try and get a Lady Miriam Hall girl in your 
place. If you really want to go like this, at a moment’s 
notice, I w-w-won’t stand in your way.” 

44 Thank you,” said Rosamond Fayre. 

The flame had died down again. She said deprecat- 


« ON ACCOUNT OF THE WAR ” 


n* 

ingly, 44 1 hope you don’t mind — I hope you won’t think 
it unkind and rude of me to go before Friday.” 

“Friday? Why Friday?” asked Miss Urquhart, 
adding, 44 Oh, when I’m married. Why should I mind 
your not being there? Of course it is not 4 rude.’ 
Nobody will be coming to the wedding, practically 
nobody.” 

44 If you wished,” added Rosamond, 44 1 could stay 

for the meeting of the Reservists’ Wives ” 

“ Oh, no. Please don’t trouble,” said Eleanor. 44 1 
can manage perfectly. When do you want the motor? ” 

Miss Fayre left Urquhart’s Court before tea-time. 
44 Please say good-bye to your father for me. I 
didn’t find him in his study,” she told Miss Urquhart 
at parting. Her hand was on the door of the car as she 
turned once more and added to the small sedate figure 
standing in the ivy-framed entrance beneath the stone 
shield with the crest, 44 1 hope you — you’ll accept my 

best wishes for yourself, Eleanor ” 

It sounded absurdly stiff, to an engaged girl of her 
own — Rosamond’s age! But no stiffer than Eleanor’s 
44 Thank you, Rosamond. And if any letters come for 
you, where shall they be sent? ” 

44 Oh, I’ll write and let you know in a day or two,” 
said the girl in the motor. 44 1 don’t know myself, yet, 
where I shall be going to, or what I shall be doing. 
Good-bye.” 


44 ON ACCOUNT OF THE WAR ” 


275 


The slow train was more than half-way to Charing 
Cross station before any plan had formulated itself in 
her own mind. 

Where should she go? She knew nobody in London 
whom she would care to ask to put her up. Mrs. 
Bray was in town, Rosamond knew; and Mrs. Bray 
was always kind. But — could she go to Cecil’s 
mother? . . . 

44 Some people would think I might do worse than 
accept poor Cecil next time he asked me,” thought 
Rosamond, with her blue eyes on the white column of 
train-smoke trailing beside the window and half blot- 
ting out the miles of outer-London backyards, where, 
among the inevitable washing, Union Jacks and French 
flags now flapped in the breeze. 44 Anyhow, Cecil is 
ready to do his duty as a man. Quite a dear — and 
nice to look at — and well-off — and adores me — what 
a pity that all these things don’t make a ha’porth of 
difference when it comes to whether you want to marry 
a person! I can’t. No. I won’t go to his mother.” 

She dismissed also the thought of the tiny stuffy 
Bloomsbury room she had occupied while she was work- 
ing at the Midas. . . . She had nearly two months’ 
salary in her pocket; enough to do better on, at least 
for the present. ... Pondering on her next move, she 
brushed a crumb off her lap, and rejoiced girlishly for 
a moment over the hang of the black skirt. Her little 
dressmaker had managed rather cleverly — 


276 


« ON ACCOUNT OF THE WAR ” 


The thought gave her an idea. . . . 

At Charing Cross she had her two trunks and one 
hat-box put into a cab; a grass-green taxi bearing in 
scarlet letters that appeal then so startlingly novel 
to so large a class of mind — 

“ YOUR KING AND COUNTRY NEED YOU!” 

and she gave the driver an address near Victoria. 

It was in a side-street off Ebury Street that the 
taxi drew up before a modest brass plate inscribed 
“ MADAME CORA: MODES, ROBES ET TROUS- 
SEAUX ” ; and Rosamond’s little dressmaker came to 
the door herself. 

“How d’you do, Mrs. Core?” said Rosamond, hold- 
ing out her hand as she stood on the whitened step. 

“Miss Fay re. Well, I never!” exclaimed the little 
dressmaker, in a quick, twittering voice, with scarcely 
a stop between her words. She was a small, neat, fair- 
haired creature, with the alert eyes and void of illusion 
of the woman who has had to fend for herself since her 
youth. “ If I wasn’t thinking of you this very morn- 
ing and your rose-pink I made you last month. How’s 
it look on, Miss Fayre? Doing you well? ” 

“ It’s very pretty, but I haven’t really worn it yet,” 

began Rosamond, smiling. “ I’ve ” 

“ Not had any occasion, Miss Fayre? Nobody worth 
while? Dear, dear. Come in, won’t you? ” 


“ ON ACCOUNT OF THE WAR ” 


m 

“ Yes, I want to know if you’ll take me in for some 
time?” explained Rosamond Fay re. “You used to 
have a room ” 

— “ and my young gentleman left it only this morn- 
ing,” said the little dressmaker. “ Usual reason for 
everything these days, Miss Fayre, on account of the 
War. Good position he had in a Bank ! Chucked it, 
as he said. Enlisted to go and have a pot at Geyser 
Bill ” 

Five minutes later saw Miss Rosamond Fayre dis- 
posing her trunks as Mrs. Core’s lodger, in a room 
whose windows looked above gray roofs and red chim- 
ney-pots out towards the towering shaft of the 
Cathedral. 

“ Hope you’ll be comfortable here, Miss Fayre, I’m 
sure,” said little Mrs. Core, bustling in with a jug of 
hot water. “ You’ll excuse the young gentleman hav- 
ing left up all his photos,” with a nod towards framed 
portraits of Miss Lydia Kyasht, of Sam Langford, 
Lord Kitchener, Carpentier, and of a group of 
cricketers that hung upon the florally-papered walls. 
“ His clothes I said he’d got to store. So there’s heaps 
of room inhere for your things. . . . This black serge,” 
she touched Rosamond’s skirt with a proprietary finger, 
“wears well, don’t it? . . . M’m ! Long time before 
any o’ my clients come for any more pretty frocks now. 
As for such a thing as The Newest Paris Winter 
Fashions, Miss Fayre, it’ll be a case of puzzle find ’em 


278 “ ON ACCOUNT OF THE WAR ” 

on most of us. All on account of this War ! As far 
as the style of our clothes go,” laughed the little dress- 
maker, 44 we shall be 4 stuck so,’ like they say to 
children making faces when the wind changes.” 

44 What a good thing we’re 4 stuck ’ while frocks are 
so pretty, then,” smiled Rosamond, slipping off her 
simple coat, 44 instead of being frozen into the fashions 
of gored skirts or leg-o’-mutton sleeves ! ” 

44 You’re right,” said Mrs. Core devoutly, unfolding 
a clean towel as she spoke. 44 By the way, I got a letter 
from that Miss Urquhart o’ yours saying how pleased 
she was with the tussore coat. Old-fashioned little 
piece, isn’t she? Frumpy, I’d call her. Doesn’t pay 
for dressing. Most expensive materials she always 
goes in for, too. Very well off she’ll be, of course. 
Well! I’m afraid you’ll find this rather a change 
after living in that swagger Court, Miss Fayre ” 

But as Rosamond Fayre glanced round the neat room, 
with its naively hideous decorations, at the resolute 
cheery face of her little landlady and at the smoke-grey 
glimpse of London outside, she shook her bright head 
with a quick smiling sigh of relief. 

She felt that all she needed was exactly this — a 
thorough change from everything to do with Urquhart’s 
Court; indeed, never again to see anything called 
Urquhart ! 


CHAPTER V 


LONDON IN KHAKI 

The whole of the next day Rosamond Fayre spent in 
walking about a city that seemed to her oddly trans- 
formed from the London that she had known. 

For this was the first time that she had been up to 
town since the outbreak of War. 

It was a glorious morning; the perfect harvest 
weather still unbroken. Overhead soft white mackerel 
clouds sailed over a sapphire sky; the September sun- 
shine bathed the pavements as Rosamond sped briskly 
along, turning first towards Victoria, and noting, with 
bright eyes, all that seemed so different. 

The first thing that struck her was the number of 
people of every kind who thronged the streets. Every 
sort of person seemed to find it possible, these days, 
to take an hour or so “ off ” — at half-past eleven in 
the morning! — from Cityfied-looking men in top hats 
and morning-coats, to bands of tiny street-boys who 
paraded past in all the pomp and circumstance of uni- 
forms made out of newspaper tied with string and with 
drums of biscuit-boxes, shouting, “ It’s a long wy to 
Tipperary, it’s a long wy to gow ! ” 

And in proportion to there being more people abroad, 
279 


280 


LONDON IN KHAKI 


the horse and omnibus traffic was thinner. There were 
fewer omnibuses than taxis whisking past, each bearing 
the scarlet signal of that message, worded with varying 
degrees of urgency, “ Enlist for the War! 99 “ Young 

Men of London , Join the Army Now ! 99 “ YOU are 
wanted TO-DAY ! ” 

Rosamond found herself wondering if it were her 
imagination or a fact that the faces of those who passed 
her wore a new expression; a look more alert, more 
alive, and more determinate than that she had been 
accustomed to see on London faces in the time — now so 
far behind them all! — of Peace? That all-pervading 
type, the Flapper, seemed to be in abeyance — her place 
was taken by bonnie and resolute-faced young women, 
many wearing the badge of a Woman’s Help Corps. 
Perhaps War smoothed out “ types ” — artistic freaks 
— by-products — resolving London’s citizens into women 
and men? 

Outside Victoria the traffic became a thickening 
throng. There was a stir and a running and a noise 
of cheering. But even tall Rosamond, hurrying to- 
wards that scene of interest, could not see much over 
the heads of the many who pressed between her and the 
Regiment marching into the station. Just a glimpse 
of lines of rifles above flat-topped caps, a glimpse of 
that stream of khaki dividing the darker crowds and 
flowing rhythmically past. . . . 

“Off!” said some one near Rosamond to some one 


LONDON IN KHAKI 


281 


else in the crowd, and a voice answered with a note of 
desperate gaiety, “ Ah, well, we shall see ’em turning 
up again with a bar or two to their medals, please 
God — (if that that number’s not still engaged by the 
Kaiser) ” 

A hand seemed to grip at Rosamond’s heart, a 
lump came into her throat so that she could only 
whisper below her breath, “ Good luck to them ! ” It 
was pride for those who went, sorrow for those who 
might not return, and yet another feeling which was not 
yet quite clear to the girl herself. 

She went on, past Westminster, Whitehall, Trafalgar 
Square, noticing the busy trade of the newspaper- 
sellers with their arresting posters — 

“ DESPERATE FIGHTING IN FRANCE ! ” 

“ France ! ” she thought, with a smile and a sigh. 
How little she, or any of those kindly village-folk in 
France had dreamt that fighting would desolate all that 
holiday place before the summer was over. She sup- 
posed that every man she’d ever seen there would be now 
with the French Army ; from the Monsieur of the Hotel 
down to the polite black-eyed youth at the Debit Tabac, 
who had finished his military service, he’d told Rosa- 
mond, last year; adding, “ You have no military service 
in England, Mademoiselle? It is droll, that.” 


LONDON IN KHAKI 


282 

Rosamond had even then considered that it was more 
than droll that the men of her country should jib at 
what these young Continentals took as a matter of 
course, namely, that every man should be trained to 
bear arms, and that drill and discipline were no hard- 
ship, but a privilege. Even before then she had always 
wondered why some sort of military training was not 
as universal among young Englishmen as, say, learning 
to swim? There need be no 64 conscription ” for that? 

Perhaps it was just the mere words 44 conscription ” 
and 44 compulsory ” to which people seemed to object? 
Perhaps the actual sacrifice of a little personal liberty 
would find them ready enough? 

For now, at last, it seemed if that spirit permeated 
All-London. . . . 

At every turn she was met by the sight of that con- 
cealing and significant colour which is made up out of 
these three mingled : the brown of earthworks, the green 
of trampled grass, the sandy-yellow of guarded coast. 
Drab and ugly enough in itself, yet now as glorious 
wear as is the richest red in the British Army, khaki was 
everywhere; swinging down the streets, crowding the 
tops of omnibuses, filling private motor-cars now 
labelled in staring letters, 44 O.H.M.S.” Through the 
great windows of the Clubs, Rosamond caught glimpses 
of khaki, with here and there a splash of scarlet. 
44 Staff,” she supposed. And in Piccadilly she passed a 
not-to-be-forgotten group of three, standing at the 


LONDON IN KHAKI 


£83 


corner by Stewart’s. Two of them, very slim and 
young, were in uniform. These were talking eagerly to 
the third who stood between them. He was a mere lad ; 
eighteen, nineteen? Small, younger than Cecil Bray, 
and of the type of youngster that instantly brings the 
thought, 44 How very lovely his sister must be ! ” He 
wore an ordinary blue lounge suit and a bowler, but 
there was that about him which marked him out as no 
uniform could have done. For his dainty, girlishly- 
featured, resolute little face was bronzed from weeks 
in glaring sunshine, and his right arm hung in a sling. 

This child was a wounded officer, one of the very first 
of them, home from the Front. And as she passed up 
Bond Street — with the eyes of all three boys turned to 
follow her for a moment — Rosamond heard the youngest 
of them saying, 44 Don’t know, but as soon as 1 can get 
my ruffian of a doctor-man to let me go back, I ” 

So young, and so unperturbed ! The sight of him 
made Rosamond Fayre realise what had been at the 
back of her mind all the time that she had been watching 
these signs of the times of England at War, with the 
best of her sons armed, or preparing to arm. 

It was the thought of another young man whom she 
knew , and who was making no such preparation. 

Ted Urquh&rt must be seven or eight years older 
than this youngster who was fuming to be sent back 
to face danger and what Rosamond thought must be 
worse, discomforts of the most sordid kind; lack of 


LONDON IN KHAKI 


284 

the most elementary comfort, water, sleep ! Ted Urqu- 
hart, as far as physique went, was twice the man that 
this little officer-boy was. 

Ted Urquhart — well, what was the use of thinking 
about him? Fortunately — for no one likes to have to 
associate with “wasters” in time of War! — Fortu- 
nately, Rosamond would never see him again. 

But everywhere she saw something to remind her of 
him and of how he’d failed. In every Bond Street shop- 
window that showed field service equipment and uni- 
forms and boots ; in the very posters of “ England Ex- 
pects — ” and “ Tommy Atkins ” ; in the badges worn 

on so many civilian coats ; “ O.B.C.” “ U.P.S.” ; 

in the trays of street-vendors who sold the French and 
English and Belgian colours instead of roses and carna- 
tions, “ Not flowers , but flags! ” — Why, it was London’s 
motto now. 

Yet Ted Urquhart , in white flannels , lounged and 
loitered among the hollyhocks and dahlias at Urquhart' s 
Court. 

She caught scraps of conversation from the people 
hurrying past her — and no one seemed to be speaking, 
except of War. 

“Like to get hold of all those fellows who’ve been 
pooh-poohing for years the ‘ German Scare,’ as 
they ” 


LONDON IN KHAKI 


285 


“And if we could have sent double the number of 
men at once, this affair would have been over in — — ” 

44 A letter this morning ; ” — this was a woman’s voice 
— 44 no postmark, of course ; and he mayn’t let us know 
where they were, or what they were doing, but he 
sounded cheery and — — ” 

— “ Says he met some one who actually saw them ! 
. . . two train-loads ! . . . noticed the odd uni- 
form ” 

— “ The very people who owe their fortunes to the 
fact that we’ve got an Army ! ” 

44 Yes ! And who used to impress upon us that the 
Boy-Scout movement had absolutely nothing to do with 
4 any nonsense about being prepared for War, or Inva- 
sion.’ But perhaps they’ll know better ” 

44 Ah, half the people in this country ought to go 
down on their knees to make a public apology to Lord 
Roberts ! ” 

44 Don't you think five thousand recruits a day is 
enough ? ” This was from a lady who walked beside a 
white-moustached old soldier. And Rosamond, going 
by, with pricked-up ears, heard him answer : 44 In what 
they call 4 the families ’ of England, there’s not a man 
left to-day. Not a man.” 

Not a man? Only Ted Urqulnart , of The Court ! 

As day wore on, more and more newspaper-sellers 
appeared in the streets, hawking the seventh and 


286 


LONDON IN KHAKI 


eighth “War-editions” with the flash of black letters 
across pink posters 

ALLIES GAIN GROUND 
(OFFICIAL) 

Among them little neatly-dressed French women with 
tricolour ribbons about their jackets and with straight 
fringes cut above their dark, anxious eyes, were offering 
“Le Cri de Londres.” . . . 

And then more people in the streets, more 
people. . . . 

Rosamond Fayre, after one of those hybrid tea-shop 
meals dear to the heart of women, strolled back again 
towards Westminster, and through the archway into 
Dean’s Yard, stopping at the echoing sound of words of 
command. 

“‘S’ you wur ! . . . ‘ Shun ’ ! . . . By — your — 

Left—T ” 

There was a crowd at the railings. The railings 
themselves were hung everywhere with coats and Nor- 
folk jackets and headgear of every sort; straw hats, 
bowlers, soft felt hats, caps. And beyond in the square 
beneath the plane-trees young men in white or coloured 
shirt-sleeves marched and formed fours and marked 
time. 

“ Recruits,” a Special Constable with a striped arm- 


LONDON IN KHAKI 


287 


let on his sleeve told Rosamond, “ for the London 
Scottish. Framing splendidly, they are ! Oh, yes, men 
drilling in all the Parks now, too. . . 

( — “ Right-T whee — ull!” and a steady rhyth- 

mic tramping of feet. . . .) 

Rosamond Fay re stood watching the grand lads, the 
big company-officer who moved up and down before 
them. 

And she thought, “ Not one of those looks any more 
like a soldier than Mr. Ted Urquhart , who isn't soldier- 
ing at all! ” 

The September dusk fell over streets only half- 
lighted. Some lamps had covers on the top, some were 
ochred over. London looked odd without her electric 
signs and with Piccadilly and Oxford Street all dim. 
Gone was that soft and golden glare, and the red haze 
in the sky ! People’s heads were lifted up to that slate- 
coloured sky, and Rosamond caught scraps of talk 
about the patrolling airship. Under the dim lights 
girls passed, with men in khaki beside them, khaki- 
sleeved arms about waists. And once again Rosamond 
Fayre found herself thinking of a young man not in 
khaki. 

He was really not worth it ! Not even worth won- 
dering over ! 

Perhaps he thought that text held good for his case: 
“ I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come ” ? 


288 


LONDON IN KHAKI 


He would be married to Eleanor in a few days — two 
days’ time now. 

Rosamond sighed as she walked homewards. 

This must be because she was very tired. She had 
been walking about all day, looking at things. 

Of all these scenes that which was to remain with 
her longest was what she’d seen as she had passed 
Whitehall. In the wide road there had been a sudden 
scurrying forward of a crowd that seemed to spring up 
out of nowhere. On the tops of omnibuses passengers 
had stood up to look, had craned their necks to gaze 
after a figure in frock-coat and top-hat, who had just 
left a car, and was ascending the steps of the War 
Office. Small, white-haired, stately and indomitable, he 
was not to be mistaken. 

His name had passed from mouth to mouth. 

“ See him P . . . It’s him. . . . That’s him. . . . 
Lord Roberts ! ” 

Full of the picture, Rosamond’s mind would link it 
for ever to the next sound that had struck upon her 
ears. 

It had been that of a bugle; industriously practised 
by a lad in the park near by. Rosamond Fayre knew 
that bugle-call. She knew the words the soldier fits to it. 

“ 1 called them; I called them ! 

They wouldn't come. They wouldn't come . 

I called them ” 


LONDON IN KHAKI 


289 


And amongst those who wouldn’t answer, the case of 
Mr. Ted Urquhart seemed to her the most disgraceful. 

Perhaps it was rather odd that though she’d left 
The Court and the Urquharts behind her for ever, Rosa- 
mond should find herself thinking of him — them even 
more constantly than when she was among them. 

This could only be because she had taken a really 
strong dislike to them. 

She concluded that it must be that. 

And so she went slowly home, through the darkened 
Buckingham Palace Road, to bed, hearing another 
bugle-call, the Last Post sounded from the near Bar- 
racks — and wondering where it would be heard by Cecil 
Bray . . . and by every other young man she’d seen 
who that day had done his duty. 


CHAPTER VI 


RECRUITING-RIBBONS 

44 This is all very well, but I can’t go on like this as if 
I were 4 a lady of leisure,’ ” thought Rosamond Fay re 
on the morning after that day which she’d spent walk- 
ing about London. 44 I shall simply have to set about 
looking for some job.” 

But even as she made herself ready in her simple 
black jacket, her small black hat with the one pink 
velvet single rose, she realised that this was a time when 
people were losing their usual jobs rather than getting 
new ones. She would find it harder than ever to obtain 
work as a typist, a secretary, a cashier. 

Once, when she had been first confronted with that 
problem of wage-earning, the tall supple girl had been 
asked if she would take a post as mannequin in a Wig- 
more Street atelier — 44 but now that would be 4 off ’ too, 
I expect,” thought Rosamond, as she walked along. 
44 War does show up how utterly superfluous most 
single women’s occupations are! What can I do? ” 

About one thing she made up her mind. 

She would not apply to the Red Cross Society, say- 
ing that she was ready to do 44 anything.” 

Rosamond realised how much valuable time of busy 
290 


RECRUITING-RIBBONS 291 

women was being taken up by just such applica- 
tions. 

She knew that womanly pity for wounded soldiers 
does not in itself constitute a 44 gift ” for nursing; that 
excellence in housework and the constitution of a dray- 
horse are far more needful assets for a nurse. So, if 
she could not be of use in this capacity, at least she 
would not cumber the ground for those who could. . . . 

But what else was there? 

“ I suppose I might try one of my old agencies,” she 
thought as she sprang on to a ’bus in Victoria Street, 
44 and at least put my name down for ” 

Here the ’bus, giving a lurch, precipitated Rosa- 
mond on to the lap of another girl who was sitting on 
the front seat. 

44 So sorry,” said Rosamond, stooping to pick up a 
sheaf of papers that the other girl had dropped. 44 I’m 
afraid one’s blown over the side there ” 

44 It doesn’t matter at all,” the other girl reassured 
her with the friendly smile which stranger seemed to give 
stranger without reserve in those days. 44 Perhaps some 
young Johnny will pick it up and save me the trouble 
of having to thrust it into his hand. These are just 
recruiting pamphlets ; I’ve hundreds of them left.” 

Rosamond, as the ’bus jogged along towards the 
Abbey, regarded her with interest. She was dark-eyed 
and slender and pale with the clear pallor of the London 
indoor worker ; and she wore a bunch of red-white-and- 


292 RECRUITING-RIBBONS 

blue ribbons pinned to the breast of her brown cloth 
jacket. 

Rosamond asked her if she belonged to any sort of 
recognised Society. 

“ No ; oh, no. I’m just doing this on my own. There 
doesn’t seeem to be anything else to do. I lost my job 
(I was typist to a German Film Agency) the week 
War was declared,” the girl said quite cheerfully, “ and 
I don’t seem to find another. No, I don’t know what I 
shall do next; but then, who does? Who knows what’s 
going to happen? Only, I don’t think any of us will be 
allowed to starve or turned out into the street for quite 
a bit,” said the girl. “ So I typed out a lot of these 
sort of tracts — some of them are extracts from Blatch- 
ford’s things — and bits of Lord Roberts’ speeches, and 
Kipling’s verses and so on — and distribute them. I 
daresay the men read them; anyhow, they don’t tear 
them up while I’m there. So I hope they take them on 
into the public-houses — When I see men walking along, 
I always imagine they’re just off to get a drink some- 
where, don’t you? — and discuss them together. It does 
no harm. And it may keep them from forgetting 
what they ought to be doing, even if they aren’t 
doing it ! ” 

“ It’s disgraceful if they aren’t,” said Rosamond, 
warmly. “ Where do you go, to serve these out ? ” 

“ On Sundays I’ve been going up the River. Yes ; 
there are rather a lot of men idling about there, still,” 


RECRUITING-RIBBONS 


293 


said the recruiting-girl. 44 In flannels, punting, with 
Union Jack cushions and a girl in a pretty frock — — ” 
“ No self-respecting girl ought to allow herself to be 
seen about with such a 6 man,’ ” protested Rosamond 
Fayre, but the other shrugged her slim, rather bent 
shoulders. 

“ All very well if all women could manage to think 
alike on just one subject for just one week. But they 
can’t,” she said philosophically. “ Perhaps two or 
three of us might turn down a 4 nut ’ who was slacking ; 
but he knows only too well that for those three there’d 
be a dozen girls ready to leap at the chance of his 
taking them up the River. That’s the whole trouble. 
I believe that there’s nothing women couldn’t do, if 
there were only not quite enough of us to go round. But 
— There are too many girls ! ” 

Rosamond protested. 44 Not too many of the right 
kind ! Those other girls would have to know that they 
were only taken when the best had turned their backs ; 
they’re only the second choice.” 

44 They wouldn’t mind. Some girls don’t mind any- 
thing, as long as they get a fellow of their own,” the 
ex-typist returned with bright acceptance of fact, 44 as 
long as they aren’t left one of the million superfluous 
women — or is it three million? ” 

44 It seems to alter so,” said Rosamond, 44 every time 
one hears the statistics.” 

44 Well, statistics wouldn’t matter to you. If there 


RECRUITING-RIBBONS 


294 

were five women to every man, you’d be the girl who 
got him,” averred the other girl with a generously 
appraising glance. 44 May I ask if your own boy’s at 
the Front? ” 

Rosamond coloured — for no earthly reason, — 
answering candour with candour. 44 He would be, if 
I’d got one, but I haven’t.” 

“ Now, isn’t Life rum,” said the other girl, reflec- 
tively. 44 Teeth like that, and not a nut to crack with 
’em. Well, well! Here’s where I get off,” she added, 
as the ’bus jolted to a standstill beside the pavement 
near Whitehall. 44 Good luck and good-bye — unless 
you’d like to come and help me to distribute my 
tracts ” 

Rosamond Fayre answered almost before she knew 
what she had decided to say. 

44 Yes! Why not?” she said, rising and following 
the other girl down the steps of the ’bus. 44 I’ll come 
with you if you’d like me t ) ” 

44 Good ! ” said the recruiting-girl. And as they 
reached the entrance to the Horse Guards she divided 
her sheaf of pamphlets, giving half to Rosamond. To- 
gether they passed the mounted Lifeguardsmen at the 
entrance to the Horse Guards ; they walked through the 
shadow of the arches under the clock and out into the 
sunny spaces with the tall grey Admiralty buildings to 
the right of them, the recruiting-tents to the left, the 
green trees of the Park, mellowing now to brown, facing 


RECRUITING-RIBBONS 295 

them as they stood, blinking for a moment after the 
shadow. 

On the wall of a shed near by a knickerbockered lad 
in a wide hat and a grey flannel shirt stiff with badges 
stood pasting up notices with the air of one firmly con- 
vinced that the safety of an Empire rests upon his 
efficiency. He was, of course, a Boy Scout. 

Rosamond’s companion turned towards him. 

“ I say, sonny, let’s have one of your posters,” she 
begged. “One of those about ‘Why Britain is at 
War.’ ” 

“ Can’t spare one, Miss,” he said, scarcely turning 
his bright eyes from his work. “ They’ll give you some 
if you apply at that tent over there,” he pointed with 
his paste-brush. Then, drawing up his small sturdy 
figure, this twelve-year-old added with all the authority 
of a full General, “ Tell them a SCOUT sent you.” 

Five minutes later the recruiting-girl had fastened 
one of these posters to her jacket, sandwich-man- 
fashion, and had pinned her own bunch of red-white-and- 
blue ribbons to the breast of Rosamond’s coat. 

“ We’ll stand here by the entrance,” she said to 
Rosamond. “ Always a heap of men here, passing at 
their dinner-hour, or hanging about to see people com- 
ing through from the War Office. Think they’ll get 
a glimpse of ‘ K.’ p’raps. Give one to everybody ; I’ll 
take the ones on the left.” 


29 6 


RECRUITING-RIBBONS 


The groups of people formed, broke up, re-formed 
and passed. And now Rosamond wondered — not that 
so many young men were drilling and in uniform, but 
that there still remained so many in civilian get-up. 
She chose to watch the next six who passed her and 
who took her pamphlet civilly enough, wondering what 
kept them a^ they were, summing them up in her rapid, 
perhaps inaccurate feminine fashion. From among the 
women, the work-girls, the old or middle-aged men who 
walked in the midday sunshine of the parade, she picked 
out what seemed to her the potential recruits. 

Here was the first. “ One ” — A young fellow of 
twenty-two or three, perhaps ; black coat, shop-assistant 
class. Pale, slenderly-built, but healthy-looking. . . . 
Six months, a year’s soldiering would make as good a 
man of him as that sentry, pink-cheeked and stalwart 
and gorgeous in his long black boots and white buck- 
skin breeches, whose sword gleamed to the salute as a 
tall officer swung by, with a rainbow-coloured line of 
ribbon across his breast. 

“ He could enlist,” decreed Rosamond, as the young 
fellow took the pamphlet, with a clearly rueful 
glance. 

“ You never know,” returned the other recruiting- 
gir!. “ Might have an invalid mother who’d nobody 
but that to support her. He might want to go all right, 
but it’s not all honey for the soldier’s dependants, 


RECRUITING-RIBBONS 297 

“ Two ” went by ; a small, alert Cockney, red-necker- 
chiefed coster type, bright-eyed, sharp-featured. 

“ Undersized, I suppose,” thought Rosamond, glanc- 
ing down at the narrow chest of the little fellow who 
took her pamphlet with a cheerful — 

“Ah, I’m too big to send against those pore Ger- 
mans ; must give ’em fair play, Lady ! ” 

“ Plenty of the French Tommies looked smaller,” 
thought Rosamond. 

“ Three ” passed with “ Four ” ; men of twenty- 
eight to thirty-three, say. Soft green felt hats, much 
gesture as they talked, bold black glances — Jews! 
They were probably making money still, even out of this 
War. A little, theatrical-looking lady, daintily- 
dressed, walked between them with a clash of gold 
trinkets, leaving a whiff of perfume on the fresh 
breeze. 

Rosamond’s companion gave a philosophic sniff. 

“ Number Five ” went by ; a rather well-made, rather 
well-dressed youth of twenty, with “ colours ” in his 
tie. He was hatless. A horse-chestnut was not more 
polished than his smooth head and the boots that 
matched it. He took the bill that Rosamond offered — 
it was headed by a verse entitled “ The Shirker.” He 
gave a glance at it, at her; and then stopped. The 
expression on his not uncomely face was distinctly 
peevish, so was the tone of his voice as he addressed 
Miss Fayre. 


298 


RECRUITING-RIBBONS 


44 I say ! Look here ! I’m getting abso-lutely fed 
with this ! ” he exclaimed crossly. 44 All you girls keep 
on asking a fellow why he isn’t at the Front ” 

Rosamond’s blue eyes echoed his query. 

“ Well ! A fellow’s done his best, don’t you know ! ” 
he told her, still in that exasperated tone. 44 Twice I’ve 
applied to those guys at the War Office, besides writing 
and writing to those Territorial Johnnies. They don’t 
seem — ah — to want a fellow. I’m keen enough to fight, 
or to do anything. But they don’t seem to have another 
blessed commission to give a fellow ” 

44 Oh, a commission — but why wait for that? ” asked 
Rosamond Fayre. 44 Why not join Lord Kitchener’s 
Army? ” 

44 Me? ” barked the auburn-haired youth. 

“Yes! why not? You’re 4 between nineteen and 
thirty-five,’ I expect? ” suggested the fair girl, quite 
gently. One or two elderly men paused to regard the 
little scene ; a nurse with a Red Cross on her coat, and 
holding a white- jerseyed two-year-old by the hand, 
listened smiling as Rosamond added, 44 You’re 4 physi- 
cally fit,’ aren’t you? ” 

44 Ra-ther ! Of course a fellow’s physically fit ! 
When he can break records — ah — for swimming 
the ” 

44 Splendid,” said Rosamond, soothingly. 44 Then 
since you want to get out to the Front, why don’t you 
enlist ? ” 


RECRUITING-RIBBONS 


299 


44 As a common soldier ? ” took up this patriot, dis- 
gustedly. 44 Oh, dash it — look here, you know ! A 

fellow’s a gentleman — ah — by birth and education ” 

44 Yes ! That is exactly how I should have described 
you,” said Rosamond, finding it a little difficult to speak 
as evenly as she would have wished. 

“ Well, then, you see! ” took up the auburn-haired 
youth. 44 A fellow can’t mix with all the tag-rag and 
bobtail of the slums, what? Hang it all! Fellow 
doesn’t want to have to sleep fourteen in a tent, or 
whatever it is, with beastly unwashed Tommies ! ” 
Rosamond could only glance at her companion. The 
other hardier girl came forward briskly. 

44 4 Unwashed ’? ” she echoed. 44 Wouldn’t you rather 
have unwashed Englishmen than the other kind spread- 
ing themselves all over the Horse Guards here? Ger- 
mans don’t go in for too many baths, I can tell you; 
I know, because I’ve worked for ’em in an office that 
wasn’t one bit fresher than one of those tents you’re 
shying at. As for you, you’d be as unwashed as our 
Tommies yourself at this minute if you were doing your 
duty. Aren’t you afraid you’re a bit of a snob? ” 

44 I’m afraid,” said the young man rebukefully, 44 that 
you’re just suffragettes! ” 

44 1 never was! I’m engaged to an unwashed Terri- 
torial, thank you ! And anyhow there isn’t such a thing 
as a suffragette left nowadays. You are behind the 


600 


RECRUITING-RIBBONS 


times. Good-bye ! ” the recruiting-girl dismissed him 
with a little nod and the quotation — 

“ 6 For we don't want to lose you 
But we think you ought to go! 9 99 

The auburn-haired Exquisite went; muttering some- 
thing about what a fellow had to put up with, just 
because those blighters at the War Office 

Rosamond laughed, with the other girl. The Nurse, 
the tiny boy who was all eyes for the sentry’s cuirass, 
and the old gentlemen passed on towards the Mall. A 
knot of working-girls — probably members of Eleanor’s 
Club — went by chattering, arm-in-arm, into Whitehall. 
There was a little pause before any young man came 
along to be classified as “ Number Six.” 

Rosamond took another handful of bills from her 
companion; she was smiling, speaking to her when, 
from the direction of Wellington Square, that Sixth 
young man walked by. 

Rosamond, talking to the other girl, had not noticed 
him as he strode past. He halted abruptly; turned 
back, faced that tall, fair girl in black, with the bunch 
of recruiting-ribbons fluttering above her breast. The 
shadow of his arm as he lifted his hat fell across her 
sheaf of papers. 

Rosamond Fay re’s eyes turned from her companion 
to confront the second tall and stalwart young civilian 
who had that morning stopped before her. 


RECRUITING-RIBBONS 


301 


And then an odd thing happened ; a thing bewildering 
but swiftly gone as the sudden flash in the sun of a 
heliograph message. 

For at the sight of this sixth young man Rosamond 
Fayre almost uttered a little “ oh — ” and she knew 
herself to be colouring hotly. She had felt for the 
second time in her life that indescribable and sudden 
thrill of delight ; warm and young and not-to-be-denied. 
The first time had been at Eleanor’s Hen-party, when 
Mr. Ted Urquhart had asked Eleanor’s secretary for 
that waltz (which she had refused). 

This second time it was at the mere unexpected sight 
of Mr. Ted Urquhart here in London. 

Then in a flash it had gone, and she knew that she 
must have been dreaming to imagine that it had ever 
been. 

She glanced unsmilingly up at Eleanor’s dear Ted; 
he was still wearing that grey suit; still determined 
that he’d be damned if he’d go to the War. 

“ How do you do, Miss Fayre? ” he said. 

For a second Rosamond wondered which would best 
convey her disapproval of a young man of this calibre; 
silence or speech ? Then she said, “ Good-morning,” 
allowing her gaze to wander to the Wireless masts above 
the Admiralty buildings which she could observe beyond 
Mr. Ted Urquhart’s shoulder. 


RECRUITING-RIBBONS 


He stood there — as if he had anything to say ! As 
he stood, half-a-dozen working-men in corduroys came 
up and held out horny hands for papers from these 
girls, pressing about them. Rosamond proffered no 
recruiting-pamphlet to Mr. Ted Urquhart. She felt 
that she need not take of him even as much notice as 
she had bestowed upon the other shirker, the gentleman 
(by birth and education) who could not enlist. She 
was not any longer at that Court — of his. 

And still Eleanor’s dear Ted waited. He spoke, 
rather stiffly. 44 Have you — any message for down 
there? Could I do anything — for you- -? ” 

44 Oh, I don’t think so,” answered Miss Fayre in cool 
surprise, 44 thanks.” 

She turned from him, making it her business to hand 
a pamphlet of each sort in her sheaf to the nearest 
passer-by; needlessly enough ! since this cjianced to be 
an officer in Naval uniform, who thanked her with much 
grace, much play of the reprobate and sea-blue eye 
under the peak of his white cap. 

And when, having uttered ’ a hasty “ Pass them on, 
please!” she turned again, Mr. Ted Urquhart had 
taken himself off; he had disappeared through the 
arches and across the courtyard into Whitehall. That 
way lay the War Office— with which, of course, Mr. 
Ted Urquhart had no business. 

And Rosamond had' absolutely no* business (as she 
seemed to be continually reminding herself) with Mr. 


RECRUITING-RIBBONS 


303 


Ted Urquhart. Why need she feel sore and ashamed 
about his defection? That was for Eleanor to feel — 
fortunately Eleanor, being a Pacifist, didn’t feel it. 
What difference could it have made to Rosamond if she’d 
heard that Mr. Ted Urquhart had volunteered as soon 
as War broke out? Ah, yes! it would have made a 
difference! That is, she would have felt then that all 
the men were standing together. Now she knew that one 
was holding back. And it had “ rubbed it in ” so to have 
lived for all those weeks in the same house with him. 

Well, she’d left now ! 

She’d have to make herself forget it. 

She was sorry that here, in the midst of such different 
surroundings, she had been reminded of it all again. 

She wished she’d never seen him. . . . 

That is, she wished she hadn’t seen him just now. . . . 

“ I say, my dear ” 

Rosamond came back with a start to her surround- 
ings, and to the other girl who touched her arm, and 
went on. “ I’ve got rid of all mine now, and it’s nearly 
two. (What about five-pennyworth of something to eat 
in an A.B.C.? Come along.) If we haven’t sent any 
of them to the Front, we’ve shown them what they’re 
thought of at the Back. What price Gilbert the Fil- 
bert, eh? And weren't you crushing to your tall friend 
in grey ! ” 

“ He wasn’t a friend,” Rosamond assured her hastily, 
as the two walked up to the Strand together. “ He was 


304 


RECRUITING-RIBBONS 


merely a man I met while I was working for the girl 
he’s engaged to.” 

“ Engaged , is he?” said the London girl, with an 
odd, quick glance. 

Rosamond said : “ He’s to be married to-morrow.” 

And that thought, which had even less to do with her 
than the thought of Mr. Ted Urquhart generally, re- 
curred to her again and again. Even while she sat in 
the tea-shop, sharing with that other girl a meal com- 
posed of a cup of Bovril, a soup-plateful of peaches- 
and-cream — even when she said good-bye to this new 
friend, made another appointment with her, and turned 
towards that Agency where she must put down her 
application — even while she walked back along Oxford 
Street noting the “ Business As Usual ” signs, and the 
inevitable bright be-flagged war-maps, those war-tele- 
grams in every shop-window — even while, back in her 
Ebury Street room, she took down her heavy hair to 
brush out the London dust, she found herself ridicu- 
lously unable to keep that irrelevant memory out of 
her mind. 

Mr. Ted Urquhart and Eleanor were to be married 
to-morrow ! 

Very quietly, in that little village Church with the 
grey spire like a pepper-castor peering above the dull 
green cliff of elm. . . . They’d all motor there to- 
gether, Rosamond supposed; thinking of them all in a 
series of pictures clear and distinct to her mind as any 


RECRUITING-RIBBONS 


305 


thrown upon a cinema-screen. There’d be old Mr. 
Urquhart, with his grey elf-lock and his Tennysonian 
hat, full of allusions to the “ Dame Eleanors ” and the 
“ Mistress Edward Urquharts ” who had been brides 
in the course of the last five centuries ; there’d be Elea- 
nor with that dream of a Limerick lace veil softening 
the matter-of-fact, conscientious little face, standing 
rather stiffly before the altar, with perhaps a splash 
of jewelled colour — purple, scarlet, orange — flung from 
the panes of the old stained-glass window upon her 
white wedding-dress. Repeating, in that trite young 
voice that had dictated so many business-letters, “ I , 

Eleanor , take thee , Edward Clive ” And Edward 

Clive — Eleanor’s dear Ted? He would be towering by 
a head and shoulders above the small compact figure of 
the bride: with that inscrutable sun-burnt face of his 
giving away as little as usual of what he was feeling 
at the moment. He’d be wearing the morning-coat, the 
conventional grey trousers of the bridegroom 

“ Odious rig ! ” thought Rosamond Fayre. “ No 
wonder a man always looks his very worst at his wed- 
ding, unless he elects to get married in uniform ! ” 

But there’d be no question of uniform at Urquhart’s 
Court. 

There was the question of the vow to “obey,” though. 

Rosamond remembered that the name of Eleanor 
Urquhart had been signed to more than one petition 
for the disuse of this obsolete absurdity. 


306 


RECRUITING-RIBBONS 


“ As if it mattered whether a woman said it, or 
meant it, or what. If she was marrying a real man, 
he’d make her want to,” thought this retrograde Rosa- 
mond, brushing her shining mane out before the ex-bank 
clerk’s small mirror. 

The echo of other scraps of that service drifted 
through her golden head. She’d heard many brides-to- 
be discussing it as “ unnecessary,” and “ horrid,” and 
“ awful.” But to her it seemed that so much of it was 
stately, beautiful. “ To have and to hold . . . till 
death do us part.” Could that be bettered? Softly 
Rosamond repeated it to herself. And then, “ With 
my body I thee worship.” What poet had ever put into 
the mouth of a lover such a line as this that the bride- 
groom must be saying to-morrow? 

Here, abruptly, Rosamond turned to answer a tap 
at the door. 

“ Brought you up a nice, hot cup o’ tea, Miss Fay re,” 
announced her little landlady, entering. “ I’ll put it 
down on the chest-o’-drawers here. Dear me, what hair 
you have, to be sure. Never saw anything like it. 
Seems a pity there’s nobody but other girls allowed 
a look at it all down like that. Got a bit of a head- 
ache, have you?” 

“ No ! Thank you very much,” said Rosamond. “ I 
haven’t a headache. But I’d love a cup of tea, Mrs. 
Core. Nothing to eat, thank you.” 

“ Thought you seemed a bit quiet when you came 


RECRUITING-RIBBONS 


307 


in? ” suggested Mrs. Core with that quick glance and 
void of illusion which she had in common with the little 
typist of the German cinema-agency and the Horse 
Guards Parade. “No! P’raps it’s only natural we 
should all feel quieter these days, Miss Fayre. I’ll take 
the cup down presently.” 

Even as Rosamond, with her hair streaming over 
her blue crepe kimono, sat on the edge of the “ camp- 
bed ” that Mrs. Core’s last lodger had left for a more 
comfortless Camp — even as she sipped the welcome tea, 
the girl’s thoughts flew back once more to that tor- 
menting — no, that irrelevant subject of the Urquhart 
wedding to-morrow. 

This time to-morrow Eleanor and her dear Ted 
would be having tea together for the first time as a 
married couple ! Rosamond wondered where it would 
be. In the train, probably, going off somewhere. . . . 
Rosamond wondered how Eleanor was feeling about it 
all. 

Probably just the same as usual! Probably not in 
the least agitated or excited or suffering from any 
symptom of the malady that Miss Fayre had heard 
described as “ Bridal Fluster ! ” Probably putting 
aside all thought of to-morrow’s event while she busied 
herself with what seemed of equal importance — to-day’s 
meeting at The Court of the Reservists’ Wives! 

“ I daresay it was because of the meeting that her 
dear Ted was packed off up to Town this morning,” 


308 


RECRUITING-RIBBONS 


reflected Rosamond as she set down her empty cup. 
“ Or perhaps he came up — it’s a thing a man’s sup- 
posed to leave to the last minute ! — to buy the wedding- 
ring? ” 

Her ringless, pretty hands went up to her hair again, 
dividing, before she coiled into the heavy knot, that 
warmed and scented shawl of gold. “ A pity,” the little 
landlady had said, “that no one but other girls were 
allowed to see it ” 

With a curious little stab of — what must be resent- 
ment, since pain and longing it could not be — Rosamond 
remembered that once she had been seen with all the 
glory of her hair tumbling about her, far below her 
waist, by a man. By the man who had run up to her 
help that morning on the sea-shore in France — the man 
who had then scraped acquaintance with her, without 
saying who he was — the man who was Eleanor’s prop- 
erty — the man who had turned out to be a shirker and 
a coward — the man who had surprised Rosamond into 
that first mad moment of throb and thrill, before she’d 
snubbed him on the Horse Guards Parade. . . . 

“ Anyhow, that’s the last glimpse I shall ever have 
of him , I hope,” concluded Rosamond Fayre, stabbing 
her largest tortoise-shell pin very firmly through the 
Clytie knot. " And I’m glad that the last glimpse he 
had of me was that I turned my back on him.” 


CHAPTER VII 


THE RESERVIST’S WIFE 

While Rosamond Fayre, with recruiting-ribbons at her 
breast, had been surrounded by men on the sunlit 
Parade, Miss Eleanor Urquhart had been preparing for 
another Hen-party at Urquhart’s Court. 

Very different, this one, from the gay gathering of 
Club girls that had been scattered like a giantess’ 
piece-box of many colours over the great green billiard- 
table of a lawn, that afternoon not many weeks ago! 

For this party did not fill the whole lawn, but only a 
few garden benches that were set out under the lime- 
trees that had already shed a light carpet of dead leaves 
which would have been beheld with horror by Mr. Mar- 
row — on a far corner of that lawn. 

Eleanor, the chairwoman of that meeting, standing 
by a table that was put to face the rows of seated 
women, wore the “ responsible ’’-looking grey costume 
that she had worn on the other occasion. Her friend, 
Miss Fabian, who, all pince-nez and superiority, was to 
address the meeting, wore under her cape of Art-green 
cloth with the collar of Vorticist embroidery, the same 
brown-patterned Liberty gown; but the dress of the 
Reservists’ wives was soberer and in many cases shab- 
309 


310 


THE RESERVIST’S WIFE 


bier than the pink and Saxe and sky-blue bravery that 
had adorned the party of Eleanor’s Club girls. Those 
girls had chattered and giggled and shrieked aloud in 
the high tide of exuberant spirits, but there was little 
laughter or noise among these women. The Club girls 
had sung musical-comedy choruses, and had played 
kissing-games and had waltzed to the music of the blue- 
and-white uniformed band; but here was no singing, 
no dancing; and, in the now historic phrase, “ this was 
not the time to play games .” These wives of men who 
had rejoined their old regiments were of varying ages 
and varying classes, from a bonneted and shawled 
flower-seller to a retired lady’s maid, in a hat and a 
black frock that had been made (originally) in Vienna; 
but upon the faces of nearly all of them there was to 
be seen the levelling look of strain, of responsibility. 
For at such a time “ women must weep ” is not the motto 
for such as they, but “ women must work” 

To find reasonably-paid work for each of these left- 
behinds was now Eleanor’s care. In the large book 
before her on the table there was entered — in the pretty, 
clear handwriting that was so successfully modelled on 
the writing of her late secretary — a suggestion for em- 
ployment opposite each name that she had just taken 
down. 

“ And now, before we all go into the dining-room 
for tea,” she concluded, “ my friend, Miss Octavia 
Fabian, will say a few words to us explaining why our 


THE RESERVIST’S WIFE 


311 


country is at War, and what we hope the results of this 
War will be.” 

Miss Fabian rose, and the decorous silence in the 
ranks of the Reservists’ wives became troubled by gusts 
of whispering here and there that made a background 
for the high-pitched, clear-cut tones of Miss Fabian’s 
platform voice. 

“Now, what I have to Explain to you wives of our 
soldiahs ” 

44 — Six of ’em, and always kept as any one could 
see them ! When I took them to the Institute the 
Matron said, 4 Well, if all the children we had brought 
here was as — — ’ ” 

44 Same battery as my old — — ” 

44 Rent? I says, whatever’s 4 rent,* I should like to 
know — — ” 

44 Ah, she’s one o’ the lucky ones ; never bin so well 
off in her life. He used to drink every penny she made, 
and now what’s fche got ? Separation allowance and half- 
pay from his firm, if you please; bought herself a new 
’at, new boots. All she’s got to do now is walk out in 
’em and get off again ! ” 

44 Order, please! Hush!” from Miss Urquhart. 

Then, louder from the speaker in the green cape, 
44 We intend that aft-ah this deplorable War, there 
can be No furth-ah War. We are fighting for that 
Great Aim. We are fighting (paradoxically enough!) 
for Disarmament! We are fighting so that our chil- 


812 THE RESERVIST’S WIFE 

dren and our children’s children need Nev-ah know what 
fighting Is ” 

46 — soon as he read that piece in the Mirrer about 
that charge of his old Rigiment he says to me, 4 Good- 
bye, Annie,’ he says, 4 I’m off. Don’t care if my time is 
up,’ he says, ‘ I’m goin’ to rejoin, if they’ll ’ave me.’ 
And o’ course they — * — ” 

44 Will you all p-p-please be quiet until Miss Fabian 
has finished,” interposed the chairman once more. Then 
she turned, to find, waiting at her elbow, the tall young 
parlour-maid in blue with silver buttons, who had re- 
placed Mr. Beeton the butler (now Petty Officer 
Beetles). 

44 What is it, White?” murmured her mistress. 44 1 
said ” 

44 If you please, Miss, a young — a young Person has 
just arrived who says she must see Miss Urquhart at 
once,” whispered the parlour-maid, conveying all her 
scandalised disapproval of this intruder in one sedate 
glance. 44 1 said you were engaged, Miss, but the — 
the Person said it was important and she must see you 
yourself, at once. She didn’t give any name.” 

44 Is she a Reservist’s wife?” murmured Miss Urqu- 
hart ; upon which the sedate White replied, 44 1 shouldn’t 
imagine so, Miss, but she has a little baby with 
her.” 

44 Perhaps I’d better come,” said Eleanor. With an 
apologetic glance at the back view of Miss Fabian’s 


THE RESERVIST’S WIFE 


313 


Art-green cape, she slipped away from the meeting 
under the limes, and walked across the lawn beside the 
parlour-maid. 

“ Where is she — in the Hall ? ” 

“ Oh no, Miss ; she didn’t want to come into the house, 
she said. And when she heard you’d got a meeting, 
she wouldn’t come on to the Terrace. She said she 
wanted to speak to you by yourself, and she’d wait 
at the back. She gave the little baby to Mrs. Marrow 
to hold, Miss, and she went towards the kitchen-garden ; 
walking up and down ; I wondered if perhaps she weren’t 
quite right in her head; she looked quite wild, some- 
how ” 

“Poor thing, what can it be?” said Miss Urquhart 
wonderingly, and she sped towards the walled kitchen- 
garden at the back of the Court. 

She opened the green door which pushed softly 
against the great dark cushion of the rosemary bush 
that grew beside the wall. The rest of that brick wall 
of mellow-red and yellow was a backing for great 
spreading fans of plum and apricot. Half a dozen 
forcing frames were ranged in between it and the thick 
box border that edged the path. And on the path, be- 
tween those frames and the prickly ranks of the goose- 
berry bushes in the opposite bed, she beheld, striding 
away from the door, the buxom figure of a young woman 
clad in a skirt of large black-and-white check, and a 
belted frieze sports-coat of a most brilliant and arrest- 


314 


THE RESERVIST’S WIFE 


ing pink ; the colour of the brightest rhododendron, the 
most garishly gay petunia. Her hands were thrust 
deep into the pockets of this garment; her head, in a 
lurid crimson casque of a hat, was held defiantly erect. 

As the door opened to admit Miss Urquhart, the girl 
in the flaring pink coat wheeled round and turned her 
comely, excited face upon her. 

“ Pansy! It’s you ? ” cried Eleanor astonished. 

Then, as she came forward to meet the Principal 
Boy, that astounded look faded from Miss Urquhart’s 
small face, leaving it disapproving beyond description ; 
searching, hard. 

For Pansy Vansittart was the very last visitor whom 
Eleanor had expected or wished to see, since enquiries 
that she had lately been making about her seemed 
likely to be true. 

There was a cloud of the blackest suspicion over 
Pansy’s good name. 

A rumour of it had reached Urquhart’s Court as 
long ago as the day of the Girls’ Garden Party, when 
Miss Fabian had mentioned that friend of hers who 
collected rents, and who knew “ something to the 
discredit ” of Miss Urquhart’s theatrical protegee. . . . 
That friend, who had been away, had returned and had 
furnished Miss Fabian with further particulars of what 
she knew. Miss Fabian had only to-day passed them on 
to the Head of the Girls’ Holiday Hostel Club. 


THE RESERVIST’S WIFE 


315 


No wonder Miss Urquhart scarcely expected to see 
this girl before her, here ! 

In her austerest voice she began, “ Well, Pansy. I 

am surprised. Have you anything to say to me ” 

“ I have, Miss Urquhart. I should think I had. 
Several things ! ” cut in the Principal Boy in her loudest 
and least abashed tone. She stood there, her feet in 
their showily-buckled shoes planted well apart on that 
path ; her handsome head well up, her face pale beneath 
its inevitable powder, and her brown eyes ablaze with 
temper. “ I want to know, for a start, if you aren’t 
ashamed of yourself? ” 

Eleanor, rooted to the spot beside the rosemary 
bush, was for a moment struck dumb by this unlooked- 
for opening. It was one which she thought might have 
been more suitably turned upon Miss Vansittart herself. 
But there was no trace of shame or even nervousness in 
that young woman’s wrathful gaze as she glared down 
upon the Court’s young mistress and, without waiting 
for any answer, went on with her indictment: 

“ Nosing and busybodying into my affairs, you’ve 
bin! Writing letters! Sending to my old address! 
Setting the landlady on to Mag about my concerns! 
It’s not what any lady would do, that’s flat ! ” 

Eleanor, with a very stiff backbone, interposed : “ I 

think you are forgetting yourself ” 

“ What ? ” ( Staccato. ) “ Me ? Haw ! ” ( Still more 

staccato.) “ Tell me who started it — that’s what I’d 


316 


THE RESERVIST’S WIFE 


like to know. That’s what I’d like to know ! Who 
sent that little freak of an Autumn Daisy pokin’ round 
my place and wantin’ to know everything from the hot- 
water pipes down to what time everybody came in at 
night, the ” 

She paused. No epithet to be found even in Pansy’s 
vocabulary could have conveyed the withering scorn of 
that short pause. 

She went on again. 44 1 know who it was, as a matter 
of fact. Ho, yes ! It was that Miss Four-eyes Fabian 
of yours ! She’s the one ! She's one o’ those spiteful 
cats who’s never happy unless she’s raking up any- 
thing she can against any girl who happens to be good- 
looking; she hasn’t got any chance of a young man of 
her own, no, and she’ll see that nobody else has, too, 
without she can make things hot for her! Rakin’ up 
and snuffin’ out, the ” 

Here another of those brief but pregnant pauses, 
while Eleanor, flushed and angry, would have spoken. 
Pansy’s 44 Huh ! ” cut like a pistol-shot across any 
attempt at interruption. The warm quiet of that sunny 
garden fled; walls and bushes and frames and vege- 
table-beds seemed to ring, to echo again with the storm- 
ing of that young woman with that voice, those garish 
garments. 

44 Taking away a girl’s reputation. Thinks nothing 
o’ that, she don’t ! . . . A respectable girl ! Girl that’s 
always been being got at, as a matter of fact, for being 


THE RESERVIST’S WIFE 317 

so particular and strait-laced! Starting a pack of lies 

about her, and people jorin’ ! ” 

“Do you mean that this is not true?” Eleanor 
slipped in hastily and edgeways. “ This that Miss 

Fabian’s friend ” 

“ There ! A -har! Didn’t I know it — — ” 

“ — that Miss Fabian’s friend told me was known 
for a fact? She said that when she called at your rooms 
at that place in Brixton,” persisted Miss Urquhart, 
“ that she actually saw you, and that you did not 
deny ” 

“’Course I didn’t deny anything! Deny? What’s 
the good of denying anything to a little flannel-face 
with a voice like an ungreased wheel that came pokin’ 
round with her, ‘Are you Miss Vansittart? ’ ‘Guilty!’ 
I said ; and me that hadn’t had time to get dressed, with 
me hair all down and my pink matinee on. ‘ Come in, 
do. This way ! I’d better put you on the Free List,” 
I said, and pretty satirically, too, which she didn’t take 
in. ‘ Have a good look round, old dear.’ Which she 
did. Hoo ! I couldn’t help seein’ the funny side,” en- 
larged Pansy indignantly, “ when me Aunt Geranium 
began putting her eyes on stalks to gape round my 
place at all Ma’s furniture ” — a gasp for breath here 
— “ and the big gramophone in the corner and the 
siphons and the ash-trays ” (gasp) “ and my photo- 
graphs of the other girls and the comedian in our Com- 
pany and some of the little things drying on the fire- 


318 


THE RESERVIST’S WIFE 


guard ” (pant) 44 and The London Mail! It amused 
me ! ” declared Pansy with another angry hoot. 44 And 
when she said to me, fi I hear some of the tenants are 
complainin’ because you never came in till midnight ’ ” 
(gasp). “ 4 Midnight if I’m lucky,’ I said. 4 It’s 
oftener one and two G.M. ! ’ She said, 4 Very unpleasant 
for a young woman to walk down this lonely new road 
alone, so late ? ’ I said, 4 Must be ! I generally take 
good care to have a young man, to hang on to, with 
me! 9 And she” (gasp) 44 looked all ways for daylight 
and said, 4 No, really. Do you really mean to admit 
that you return every night at those disgraceful hours 
and with a MAN?’ and I” (gasp) 44 just said the 
nastiest thing I could think of.” 

Here Pansy, with another hoot, tossed her crimson 
casque and laughed into Eleanor’s apprehensive little 
face as she concluded with that 44 nastiest thing ” she 
had hurled at the rent (and scandal) collecting spinster. 

44 1 said, 4 Yes ; Miss! 9 ” 

44 W-w-w-well, then, I d-d-don’ t see how you can 
d-d-defend your conduct,” took up Eleanor, with an 
energetic though stammering attempt to regain her 
legitimate footing. 44 And b-b-besides that, there is 
another thing. The m-m-maid told me j-just now that 
you b-b-brought a b-b-baby with you, and that the 
g-gardener’s wife is minding it for you now. Is it 
your s-sister’s child ? ” 

44 No fear ! ” retorted Pansy promptly. 44 Let my 


THE RESERVIST’S WIFE 319 

sister cart her own little handfuls about! It’s mine, 
that is.” 

“Yours?” said Eleanor, with a deepening of the 
hardness on her face. “ Then it was all true. You 
have got a baby •” 

“Why shouldn’t I?” snapped the Principal Boy. 

“ A baby ” 

“ Yes. Why not? Haven’t I been married gettin’ 
on for two years now ” 

“ Married? ” echoed the stupefied Eleanor. “ You’re 
married ? ” 

The breast of Pansy’s petunia-pink frieze coat 
seemed to swell as a sail that takes the breeze. With 
another toss of her whole person she retorted, “ You don’t 
give me much chance, do you, Miss Urquhart? You 
don’t take much for granted ! As soon as you’ve made 
sure there’s a kid, you — ah, you’re as bad as the other 
one!” Her face, no longer pale, deepened in colour 
almost to the crimson of her hat. “ If you don’t be- 
lieve me, Miss Urquhart, you’d better look at these ” 

She plunged her hand into one of the hip-pockets 
of her coat, drew out a long packet of papers and thrust 
them upon the younger girl. 

“Here’s my marriage-lines, see? Read ’em,” she 
commanded. “Yes, you read ’em; here you are. 
4 Pansy Teresa Price,’ understand? That’s me. Van- 
sittart’s only my stage name, as any o’ the girls could 
have told you, if you’d agone about asking them in 


320 


THE RESERVIST’S WIFE 


the right way,” snorted the Principal Boy. “And 
here’s my other name, Hawkins ! ” She stabbed the 
certificate with a nicotine-gilded forefinger. “ Here he 
is : ‘ George Herbert Stanley Hawkins ’ — that’s the 
* young man ’ I used to come home with every night at 
those ‘ disgraceful hours ’ — yes, and stay home with, 
too. (More than some o’ them do!) Think o’ that! 
That’s my Stanley ! That’s my husband ! ‘ Cinemato- 
graph Operator’; that’s his occupation. Was then, I 
mean. Want to know what his present shop is? What 
he’s doin’ now, Miss Urquhart? He” — with another 
proud heave of that petunia-pink bosom — “ he’s reelin’ 
off another sort o’ pictures ” — with a brisk circular 
gesture — “of those heathen Germans! Yes. He’s 
working a machine-gun somewhere in France at this 
minute, bless ’im! That’s where he is; with his old 
battery that he served with in the Bor’ War ! That’s 
right. Well! And so you’d a party for Reservists’ 
Wives here to-day, Miss Urquhart. Pity you never 
thought to give me a call ! ” 

“ How w-w-was I to know that you were a Reservist’s 
wife?” demanded the discomfited Eleanor, not unnat- 
urally rather cross. “ How c-c-could any one have 
thought you w-were a m-married woman ? ” 

At this Pansy’s temper, that seemed for the minute 
abating, suddenly flared up again. She kicked the path 
with the wooden Louis heel of her shoe as she exclaimed, 
“ Not ‘ a married woman ! ’ Me ! A married woman, 


THE RESERVIST’S WIFE 


321 

ah, and a good wife — which is more than you’ll ever he. 
Miss Urquhart, for all those sparklers on your finger 
there, and for all this swanky house-and-grounds that 
you’re getting married for ! ” 

“ There is no n-n-n-need,” Eleanor began, set-faced, 
“ to be insolent, Pansy.” 

“Insolent? Shall be insolent if I like — I shall say 
what I like to you for once, Miss Urquhart, and do 
you good,” cried the Principal Boy, her bell-like tones 
shaking afresh with anger. “ Don’t think I don’t see 
through you — a nice kind of sweetheart you’d make to 
any man — let alone the one who’s the misfortune to be 
cast for the intended! I bet that’s never been any- 
thing but a dead frost since the curtain went up on it! 
I bet he’s never been encouraged to catch you in his 
arms and fairly eat you up with kisses, same as a girl’s 
got to expect when she’s promised herself to a fellow ! ” 

Here, Eleanor Urquhart, standing there small and 
undefensive, winced. She winced distinctly. She put 
out the spare brown hand that wore the Urquhart ring, 
and gave a little clutch, as if for support, to the rose- 
mary bush beside her. She held on to a bunch of the 
sturdy twigs, thick with dark, aromatic leaves. Her 
other hand went to the breast of her grey jacket and 
she cleared her throat with a little choking sound that 
was rather pathetic. But she did not move the relent- 
less Principal Boy. Pansy, who had lashed herself up 
into growing excitement, went on. 


THE RESERVIST’S WIFE 


“ Ah, you look down on me, Miss Urquhart. You 
think I’m 6 not a lady,’ but I tell you what it is — I 
know you’re not a woman ! Ah, and he knows it too, 
your Mr. Urquhart does. A pretty wash-out that’ll be, 
you getting tied up to him ! For ” — Pansy wound up 
with a piece of tried feminine philosophy — “ if you, 
can't keep a young man before you've got him , when 
can you , 1 should like to know? " 

Here Eleanor, still clutching the rosemary twigs, sud- 
denly raised the dusky head which had dropped on to 
her slight chest. Blankly, incredulously, her dark eyes 
met the angry, taunting eyes of the woman of whom 
she’d thoroughly “ got the back up.” 

“ Pansy ! ” she exclaimed, “ I d-don’t understand. 
I w-w-want to know what you m-mean by what you’ve 
just said. 6 Not k-keep him’?” 

“ Oh, you know you haven’t! You know you 
haven’t ! ” Pansy persisted, roused, angry, the worst in 
her nature awake and anxious to hurt the fellow-woman 
to whom she had always been subconsciously antago- 
nistic. “ Any one could see with half an eye who all 
his eyes were for! If I’d only seen him at, the Party 
here, I should have been on to it, watching him follow 
her about like — why, like the limelight follows the lead- 
ing lady round the stage in her big scene ! You weren’t 
on in that, Miss Urquhart! Let alone that time in 

France, at the Hostel ” 

“ What was that?” Eleanor, her eyes fixed on the 


THE RESERVIST’S WIFE 


323 

Principal Boy, demanded, very sharply. 44 What was 
that at the Hostel?” 

“ Only the same thing — only more so. He was her 
shadow, was your handsome young man. He couldn’t 
help himself ! ” enlarged the Principal Boy. “ He was 

hers for a word, for a look ” 

“Who d’you mean? Tell me. You must tell me,” 
said Eleanor Urquhart, peremptorily, with a sharp, 
shrill note in her voice that sounded odd in her own 
ears. “ I have a right to know.” 

44 You’re a fool if you don’t know already,” retorted 
the downright pantomime girl. 46 1 mean her you left 
to look after us there; Miss Fayre. D’you suppose 
that good-looking young fellow wasn’t head over ears 
in love at first sight with that peach of a girl? ” 

There was a silence in that sunny garden; through 
which floated from the house the deep and distant purr 
of the gong for tea. Then Eleanor, still with that odd 
new note in her voice, said, 44 This must be a mistake.” 
Pansy laughed unsympathetically. 

44 A mistake? Not of mine, Miss Urquhart. Why, 
you should have seen him! Every time he gave her a 
look, well, it might as well have been a arm round and 
have done with it ! And didn’t he let out to me himself 
that he’d been chasing round the rocks and everywhere 
that morning trying to find Miss Fayre? Didn’t he get 
me to get the other girls out of the way that afternoon 
so that he should have the stage to himself to talk to 


THE RESERVIST’S WIFE 


324 

her? Not that I heard a word after,” the Principal 
Boy added, 44 turned him down proper, I shouldn’t 
wonder. Got a best boy of her own, has our Miss 
Fayre, I expect. But if there wasn’t any poaching on 
your preserves that week, it wasn’t any credit to your 
young Mr. Ted ! ” 

44 Are you sure ? ” began Eleanor, a little gaspingly. 
44 Pansy ! Are you — — ” 

But her small and agitated voice was interrupted by 
a volume of sound that came from beyond the closed 
green door of the garden; a noise as of a young and 
healthy bull-calf, bellowing. 

The door behind Eleanor was pushed open and the 
noise increased almost deafeningly as there appeared 
the aproned, rosy and plump wife of Mr. Marrow the 
ex-gardener bearing in her arms a white-plush-coated 
child of eight months, his white woolly cap bristling with 
War-badges, his eyes tightly closed, and his mouth 
stretched to a cavern emitting roar after roar. 

44 Can’t do anything with him,” explained Mrs. Mar- 
row in a shriek above the uproar, with an apologetic 
dip towards Miss Urquhart. 44 He woke up sudden, and 
I suppose finding hisself all among strangers, pore 
lamb, in a place he wasn’t used to ” 

44 Oh, lor! Givvim to me, then. Come on, Herbert,” 
exclaimed Mrs. Stanley Hawkins, grabbing her son, not 
too gently, into her petunia-pink embrace. 44 There! 
Tinker! Young Terror, ain’t you? Leave orf ” 


THE RESERVIST’S WIFE 


325 


And, as if by magic, the bellowing ceased. With the 
vibrations of it still quivering in the air, with the tears 
still rolling down the rose-red and bulging cheeks, the 
Pantomime-girl’s baby drew a long, sobbing breath and 
then grinned the ineffable grin of Naughtiness 
Triumphant. 

“ Ah,” said the baby-boy. “ M’ — gur ! ” 

The next thing to happen was as sudden and as 
unexpected as that lull to a tempest. 

For Miss Eleanor Urquhart, moving rapidly as she 
was never known to move, took a hasty diffident step 
towards the group, gazed with a moved and transfig- 
ured face upon Master Herbert Hawkins, and cried 
aloud, “ Oh, Pansy, what, what a darling ! . . . Oh ! 
You sweet ! . . . Can’t I hold him for just a 
minute ? ” 

“ Well, if he’ll go to you «” returned the young 

Mother, taken aback and mollified; and Eleanor put 
out her hands, cooing invitation. 

For a moment the child hesitated. Then the com- 
placent grin creased his pink face once more, and he 
stretched out his little arms, stiff in the thick plush 
sleeves, towards the instinctively-recognised, the born 
B aby -worshipper . 

And for the next few minutes those two wives saw 
Eleanor Urquhart absolutely at her best; holding and 
playing with a little child. For she was of the type 


m THE RESERVIST’S WIFE 

which the perfect nurse is made; and not the good- 
/tured, capable Mrs. Marrow, not the sumptuous 
Pansy, not the beautiful Rosamond, beloved of men, 
well-fitted to be the mother of men, would ever learn 
quite that lovely gesture with which plain, severe little 
Eleanor cradled in her arms another woman’s child. 

44 I didn’t ought to have said off all I did say to 
you, Miss Urquhart, but I was wild,” admitted Pansy, 
ruefully, as she took leave at the garden-door of the 
little organiser whom she had never resented less. 44 It’s 
not you; it’s those friends of yours I haven’t been able 
to stick ; if you don’t mind me saying so ; still, if there 
weren’t some o’ that sort, there’d be one sort less. And 
I’ve been to blame, myself. I know I didn’t ought to 
have passed myself off as a single young girl and gone 
to that Hostel, but there! Nobody calls themselves 
4 Mrs.’ in my profesh’; and I swear none of those other 
girls, Miss Urquhart, had a word of anything Married, 

as you might call it, from me. I ” 

(“ OOgully-googully,” said Pansy’s baby-boy.) 

44 N-n-n-never mind, Pansy. You go and have some 
tea with Mrs. Marrow, will you? ” 

44 It was all because I was weaning my little Herb ! ” 
the Principal Boy persisted. 44 He’d always slept in 
an old property-box in the dressing-room while I went 
on, Miss Urquhart, and I’d given him his feed at ten 
there, regular, every night. (More than lots of ’em 


THE RESERVIST’S WIFE 


327 


would!) And I said, 4 Well, if I’ve got to drop it, go 
away I must , and so — — ” 

( 44 Goo an’ glue,” said the baby.) a 

44 It is all right,” said Miss Urquhart, standing there 
with one finger still lingering in the baby-boy’s pink 
clutch. 44 We’ll forget about it now.” 

44 There’s something else I was gassing about,” added 
the young Reservist’s wife, uneasily, 44 that I didn’t 
ought, and that I’ve p’raps got off all wrong, and that 

I hope you’ll forget, too ” 

44 Very well, Pansy,” said Miss Urquhart with her 
most business-like nod of farewell. 44 Good-bye, you 
Duck — ” to the baby. 

Pansy knew, as well as Eleanor knew herself, that 
what she had said about a fiance and about another girl 
was something not to be readily 44 forgotten ” by a 
bride-to-be. 

And Eleanor Urquhart, outwardly busied with the 
tea for the Meeting, thought of little else but that 
44 something ” for the rest of the afternoon — except of 
the slow passage of the time to the hour when Ted 
Urquhart had said he would be coming back, from his 
business in London, to The Court. 

With a beating heart and a catch at her throat the 
girl who was to be married on the morrow decided, 44 1 
shall speak to him about it. I shall ask him." 


CHAPTER VIII 


ALLIES 

The Reservists’ Wives, together with Miss Octavia 
Fabian, who for the first time that she had visited The 
Court had not been pressed to stay for dinner, had all 
gone by the time that Ted Urquhart, rather out of 
spirits and irritable, returned to his house from a day 
in London spent between the War Office and the out- 
fitter’s. All was in order now. He might expect to be 
off on the following Monday or Tuesday, ready, mar- 
ried, will made, everything. There were a few people to 
say Good-bye to. One young woman, to whom he’d 
thought he’d like to say a friendly Good-bye, after all 
had turned her back on him just as he was opening his 
mouth to say it. Well, the other one had agreed with- 
out demur to becoming his wife at once. And in the 
late afternoon sunlight this girl was waiting to meet 
him on the Terrace as he jumped down from the motor; 
she came quickly forward, and for the first time since 
he and she had been engaged, young Urquhart saw that 
Eleanor, his betrothed, seemed really glad to see him. 

“You are late, aren’t you?” she said in a queer 
breathless little voice. “ I thought you were never 
coming back, Ted.” 


328 


ALLIES 


329 


“ Do you know, that is the nicest thing you have 
ever said to me, Eleanor? ” said Ted, looking down 
upon the prim little figure, and feeling rather touched. 
She did care then, whether he came or went? Well, 
that was something, when another girl had just shown 
him so very plainly that she preferred him to go. Elea- 
nor, after all, had got a scrap of ordinary womanly 
feeling for him tucked away under all that chilly and 
matter-of-fact crust of hers? That was an edge of 
silver to the black cloud of depression into which there 
seemed to be setting the sun of this day before Ted 
Urquhart’s wedding. 

He smiled quite gratefully down into the big anxious 
brown eyes that the bride-to-be lifted to his face. 

“ It isn’t so very late,” he suggested. “ Half an 
hour before we dress. What about going for a stroll 
all round? We may not have time to-morrow. Or 
are you tired, Eleanor? ” 

“ N-no. Oh, no. I’m not tired. Let’s go for a 
walk before we go into the house. I’d like it,” said 
Eleanor, quite eagerly. “ I — I w-wanted to have a little 
talk with you, if I could.” 

“ Rather,” he said, brightening a little. “ Come 
along.” 

He tossed his hat on to a chair in the hall, and came 
down the steps again. “ We’ll do the grand tour of 
our estate, shall we?” said Ted Urquhart with deter- 
mined cheerfulness to the girl so soon to be his wife. 


330 


ALLIES 


They turned along the Terrace to the right, towards 
the park that led through the rose-garden, and to the 
new fish-pond. 

“ It’s a jolly evening, isn’t it? ” said the bridegroom- 
to-be, raising his eyes to the apricot sky patterned with 
pink fleecy clouds. The soft air with the September 
nip in it was full of the scent of tall tobacco-plants 
that grew jungle-thick at the back of the herbaceous 
border on the south of the rose-garden; nearer to the 
path were clumps of ragged glowing double dahlias, 
sulphur-yellow, orange, cardinal-red ; a huge blot of 
richest purple marked the China asters and next to 
these ran a long splash of shrieking scarlet, salvias. 
“ Gorgeous weather for autumn ; I’ve never seen this bit 
of the garden look so ripping,” said young Urquhart, 
gazing at the English flowers under the English sunset. 
“ This is my good-bye to it, Eleanor.” 

“ Yes,” said Eleanor, with that agitated little quaver 
in her voice that moved him and hurt him because it 
lacked power to move him more. At least the little 
thing was sorry he was off. The near parting was 
stirring up what feelings she had ; or the near wedding. 

Some girls were like this, he thought; made on such 
conventional lines that when they really definitely be- 
longed to a man they were automatically “ fond ” of 
him ; sad to think of his going. And when — if he came 
back, Eleanor would become as automatically glad to 
welcome her husband. 


ALLIES 


331 


That thought brought a gleam of comfort. There 
was just a sporting chance that he and she, together, 
might find married happiness at last — at least, as much 
happiness as many couples. . . . They would be not 
strangers, but allies even if they never might be lovers. 
If only he had never seen another ; if only he had never 
given himself up to those mad dreams of that golden- 
haired girl pacing this very garden at his side! 

44 Come and have a look at the pond,” he said hastily 
to Eleanor, who was strangely silent as they walked 
along. All her usual store of trite little platitudes 
seemed to have forsaken her; she seemed to have noth- 
ing to say this evening. And yet she had volunteered 
that she’d wanted 44 a little talk ” with him ! Perhaps 
she only wanted to be, quite quietly, with him. Perhaps 
she didn’t want to speak at all. 

But when they reached the round pond with the grey 
stone border and stood looking at that smooth mirror 
to the sky, blotched at one side with lily-pads, Eleanor 
Urquhart spoke, her queerly agitated little voice break- 
ing through the heavy country quiet. 

44 Ted ! I want to say something to you ! ” 

44 Oh, yes ? ” He turned, looking down at her 
again. 

44 It — it’s rather d-d-difficult ! ” 

44 Is it?” said Ted Urquhart, encouragingly, and 
wondering what this might be. Perhaps she was going 
to ask him what be wished done about some business or 


ALLIES 


other in the event of his being wiped off the slate out 
there? It was rather “ difficult,” perhaps, for a girl 
who was not yet a wife to ask for her instructions as a 
widow, he thought whimsically as he added kindly, 
“ surely you can tell me — we’re getting married to- 
morrow, and ” 

“ That’s just it,” gasped Eleanor. She clenched her 
small hands. There lingered on her palms the aromatic 
scent of the rosemary twigs she had clutched at for sup- 
port when Pansy blurted out those revelations in the 
kitchen-garden. The memory of what that girl had said 
spurred Eleanor to bring out, with a little breathless 
rush, what she herself wanted to say. 

“Ted! Is it true? Something I heard. S-some- 
thing somebody has just t-told me. That you liked 
somebody . . . were in love with somebody else?” 

Young Urquhart’s tall elastic figure seemed to stiffen 
all over into angry alertness. 

“ Who? ” he demanded. 

He meant “ who said it? ” But Eleanor mistook his 
question and answered without reserve. 

“ They said you were in love with Rosamond Fayre.” 

“What’s this?” he took up angrily. “Who’s been 
talking to you ? ” 

“ Pansy Vansittart — you know her ” 

— “ Oh, Lord,” from Ted below his breath. 

— “ was here this afternoon. She was very angry. 
She said it to hurt me, I think,” his -fiancee explained 


ALLIES 333 

rapidly. “ But I want to know, from you, whether it’s 
really true? ” 

The tall young man and the small girl stood con- 
fronting each other above their own contrasted reflec- 
tions in the still waters at their feet. 

He spoke quietly now. 

“ Eleanor, will you believe me ? I swear that there 
is nothing — absolutely nothing between me and any 
woman. Since I’ve been engaged to you I haven’t said 
a word to any woman that you could not have 
heard.” 

“ B-but that’s not what I asked you ! ” the engaged 
girl took up with a helpless, repudiating gesture of her 
hands. “ Why do m-m-men always answer one like 
this? Always something that’s got nothing to d-do 
with the question! Is it true? What Pansy said! Is 
it ? I want to be told ! ” 

“ Well, but look here — ” began the young man, 
cruelly embarrassed, bewildered. 

He took a few steps away from the side of the lily- 
pond, towards the path that went up beyond the 
clipped, box-peacocks-and-windmill hedge, to the 
smaller lawn where Eleanor’s girls had danced. Elea- 
nor followed him; every movement of her small figure, 
the pose of her dark head one urgent, repeated demand. 

“ Is it true ? ” 

“ Look here, Eleanor,” he began again. “ I must 
tell you that she — the girl you speak of — would simply 


ALLIES 


334 

— Well ! I don’t know what she’d do for surprise if 
she heard what you said. She — why, if it ever occurred 
to her ” 

44 N-never mind her. That isn’t it. Oh,” Eleanor 
cried desperately, 44 c-c-can’t you answer what I’m ask- 
ing you? Ted!” she put out a hand and clutched his 
sleeve even as she had clutched that rosemary bush. 
44 This is the first time I’ve ever asked you to d-do any- 
thing for me. Won’t you do this?” Her voice was 
the voice of an appealing and frightened child. 44 Ted ! 
Will you tell me? ” 

44 All right. I will tell you,” said the young man 
quickly and firmly. That touching, unexpected, girlish 
appeal had made up his mind for him. The poor child ! 
Poor little mite, hiding that jealous affection until ad- 
mission was forced from her like this ! There remained 
only one thing for the man she cared for to do. 
Namely, to obey the Eleventh Commandment at Eton ; 
to tell a lie, to tell a good ’un, and to stick to it. And 
so he declared, without a quiver, 44 It’s all a mistake, 
Eleanor! It isn’t true.” 

44 Not true?” muttered Eleanor, and her hand 
dropped from his sleeve. 44 You’re sure, Ted?” 

44 Quite sure,” insisted Ted Urquhart briskly. 44 It 
was all rot, my dear.” 

The next moment the small girl at his side had made 
such an impulsive movement that he thought she was 
going to fling her arms wide to him. 


ALLIES 


335 


But she had only taken a couple of steps backward. 

There was a rustic bench beside that path, backed 
by the clipped hedge. Blindly, and as if pushed down 
by a crushing blow, Eleanor’s compact little figure 
collapsed upon that seat. She dropped her dusky head 
upon both her hands and broke into uncontrollable 
sobs. . . . 

Poor little soul ! Poor, overwrought little thing — 
Lord, how he wished she wouldn’t ! . . . Even if she 
were crying for joy — what could be done to stop 
it? 

Suffering acutely from this sight of a woman in 
tears — Eleanor, of all women ! — and on his behalf, too ! 
— Ted Urquhart plopped down hastily beside his fiancee 
on the bench. 

“ Eleanor. Look here, Eleanor, please ” 

He put his long arm about her shoulders. 

He was ill-prepared for the brusque, the intense 
gesture with which Eleanor drew herself back. 

“ No. Oh, Ted, if you dont mind, I can’t bear to 
be touched ! ” 

“ Sorry,” he said, mystified, and dropping his arm. 
“ What have I done — — ? ” 

“ Oh, nothing. I know you can’t help it, but — 
b-b-but oh ! it was so awful when you said that just 
now,” sobbed Eleanor Urquhart out of her handker- 
chief. “ All — all the afternoon since Pansy spoke I’ve 
been thinking — and thinking — M-M-M-Making up my 


336 


ALLIES 


mind that she m-m-must be right! G-G-Going back 
and remembering things and thinking I’d n-n-noticed! 
F-Feeling quite c-convinced that you did c-care for 
Rosamond, and that it was all t-t-true ! And now you 

say it isn’t. Oh! Oh! After I’d hoped ” 

“ Hoped,” echoed Ted Urquhart blankly. “ I don’t 
understand, Eleanor. I don’t quite understand. D’you 
mean — ? Can you mean you wanted it to be true that 
I cared for somebody else?” 

“ Yes ! Of c-course! ” sobbed the bride-to-be 
desperately. “ Because then — then I needn’t — I 
shouldn’t be exp-pup -pected to marry you to-morrow ! ” 
“ Good Heavens ! ” said the bridegroom-to-be, sitting 
up very straight and staring at her. “ Is this how you 
feel about it, Eleanor? ” 

“ Yes ! I’m sorry ! I c-c-can’t help it ! I have 
tried ! ” declared Miss Urquhart, struggling to fight 
down her sobs. “ I thought I could d-do it ! F-For 
Father’s sake and everybody’s ! I thought I could bear 
it all, without showing anything ! I thought I could be 

strong and bub-brave enough ” 

“Brave enough?” 

“ Yes, and so I was ; until there s-seemed to be a 
chance of g-getting out of it ! And n-now — even if that 
isn’t true about Rosamond — of c-course I hate p-put- 
ting you out and d-disappointing Father and all that! 
B-B-Breaking my word at the eleventh hour ! Ctic-can- 
celling my appointments — a thing I never do, really,” 


ALLIES 


337 


wept Miss Urquhart, defensively, 44 still, I c-can’t do the 
other. Oh, don’t ask me to go on with that dreadful 
wedding to-morrow, Ted ” 

She turned to him, her small face broken up, 
quivering. 

“L-l -let me off!” 

44 But of course. Oh ! Certainly. Rather,” broke in 
Ted Urquhart, precipitately but mechanically, for he 
was almost numb with amazement over the true cause 
of the girl’s emotion. 44 1 say — please don’t consider 
yourself bound in any way, please let me give you back 
your freedom,” he concluded, 44 here and now ! ” 

44 Oh, you are good ! ” cried Eleanor, one tremble of 
relief. 44 If you’re sure you don’t m-mind very 
much ” 

44 It’s quite all right,” he said, too discomfited for 
further words. 44 Quite all right. I ought to have 
guessed, perhaps. If you’d said a word ” 

44 Oh, but I was t-trying — so hard — not to show how 
I minded ” 

Ted Urquhart gave a short and very bitter laugh. 
44 1 seem to be remarkably unlucky in the way of pleas- 
ing any woman,” he said. And he raised the gallant 
young head of which nine out of ten women would not 
have denied the attractiveness, and stared away above 
the lime-trees. He scarcely saw that quickly yellowing 
sky, speckled with homing rooks; what he saw was a 
picture of the golden knot of hair above the supple 


ALLIES 


338 

shoulders of that girl who’d also turned her back on 
him. “ I am sorry,” he muttered, half to himself, “ that 

I manage to put you off like this ” 

“ Oh, it isn’t you, Ted. I don’t think that being 
engaged to you would be worse than being engaged to 
lots of other people,” pleaded Eleanor deprecatingly, 
raising her blurred eyes to his again. “ It’s only that 
I hated it so, especially when the actual D-Day was 
fixed! And then — it got n-n-nearer and nearer to 
b-being m-married ! Oh! I tried to th-think of how 
F-Father wished it, and of how k-kind you’d been; — * 
b-but all the time I knew how I should hate being your 
w-wife — Anybody's, I mean ! ” she corrected herself, 
hastily, picking and clutching at a wet handkerchief. 
“ 1 always think a m-married woman is only half an 
ind-d-dividual, as Miss Fabian says. She g-gives up her 
p-personality, her privacy ! she isn’t herself, somehow, 
any more ; oh, I couldn’t ! ” she pleaded, bewilderedly. 

“ I don’t know why I’m like this ” 

“ Don’t, child — don’t,” said young Urquhart, con- 
fused beyond words at this burst of confidence, unre- 
strained as are the rare confidences of the naturally 

self-contained. “ Don’t bother to explain ” 

“ Yes. I must ex-pup-plain,” she persisted. “ I 
don’t want you to think it’s only because it was you that 
I was so ded-dreadfully miserable when I was engaged ! 
It would have been the same with anybub-body else. I 
don’t know whether it’s because I d-do so detest the scent 


ALLIES 


of their cigarettes, or if it’s because of their gruff 
voices, or what, but ” 

Here, with a rush of unmistakable sincerity, the 
little philanthropic worker voiced a keynote to her own 
character. 

She cried — 

“ 1 don't like Men ! I don’t like any men at all. I 
never have. I never could ! There, Ted.” 

Ted Urquhart regarded her; this young woman of a 
type not uncommon in this world, but nearly always 
misunderstood. 

At the head of the same type stands Joan of Arc, 
the saint, the Saviour of her country, leader of soldiers 
— who was the sweetheart of no soldier, of no man. 
Of the same type one sees many and many a noble 
woman-worker, a born Nurse, a Heaven-sent tender of 
little children. To the Eleanor-type, Love for a man 
is limited to nurse-love for him at the age of Pansy’s 
baby-boy. She can delight in the sight of that fruit 
of Love. But the sweetness of its blossom sickens and 
disgusts her. Not for her is the gay warfare between 
man and maid — ending in joyous surrender. The 
caress revolts her. 

To the end, men will say of that inborn aversion, 
“ Ah ! Sour grapes ! Pretends she doesn’t care for men, 
just because she’s never had the chance of a man making 
love to her ! ” 

Perhaps Ted Urquhart, that Brainless Army type, 


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was still rather more understanding than many of his 
sex. He actually realised that it was not out of place to 
say to his cousin, “ I see. Will you forgive me for hav- 
ing made you put up with what must have been rather a 
beast of a time for you? ” 

One moment later he was holding that little spare 
brown hand of Eleanor’s in the warmest, most affec- 
tionate grip it had ever known. 

“ Oh, Ted, don’t apologise ! I knew you didn’t know 
how I hated it all. And you’ve been so nice now. I 
shall like you so,” she admitted with a gulp, “ as a 
cousin ! ” 

“ Well, that’s something saved out of the fire,” he 
said, with a queer mixture of ruefulness and amusement 
in his tone. “ I hate being bad friends with any 
one ” 

Here he had another pang, thinking of some one, a 
girl so different from the type of Eleanor, who was 
still “ bad friends ” with him. He went on quickly 
to the girl beside him. “ So, in spite of this bust-up, 
and of the War, and what not, we two are parting 
friends, at all events. Aren’t we? ” 

“ Oh yes ! Of course. I — I never seemed to know 
you before,” she said. “ You were just — a man, a man 
that I’d got to put up with. It was awful! All your 
little ways — 1 — ” 

“ May I ask which little ways ? ” 

“ Oh, none p-particularly. Only everything you did ! 


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341 


You would talk to me. You would look at me!” com- 
plained his ex-j fiancee, to his dumb surprise. “ However, 
that’s all over now. This makes such a difference,” she 
said, drawing a long breath and disengaging one of 
the hands ; her left one. “ I can give you this back 
now ” 

“ This ” was the famous Urquhart sapphire, set with 
diamonds, that Eleanor drew off as gladly as another 
engaged girl might have assumed her ring. 

“Wear it on the other hand, then, won’t you?” 
suggested her ex-j fiance gently. “ Just to show there’s 
no ill-will — a dis-engagement present, eh? Please do. 
I’d like you to ” 

“ But when you get married,” objected his cousin, 
“ this ring is supposed to go to your wife! ” 

“ All right, all right. Perhaps you’ll send it to me,” 
said young Urquhart, briefly, “ when there’s a wife to 
think of. You keep it, Eleanor.” 

He rose, as she did. They began to stroll down 
that path, round to the lime-tree Avenue that Ted had 
once paced alone, when he had wondered in what words 
he could most gently break to Eleanor that he wished 
to cancel that futile and flavourless engagement of 
theirs. 

And now it was she who had found the words to break 
it off. 

In the shadows under the limes her voice broke the 
stillness again. 


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“ Ted ! I do think it’s a pity ! ” 

“What’s a pity? If you can’t,” he said soothingly, 
“ you can’t.” 

“ I d-don’t mean it’s a pity we aren’t getting married. 
I mean it’s rather a pity that, after all, you don’t care 
for Rosamond Fayre.” 

“ Oh, that,” he said curtly. “ Rather a good thing, 
actually. The girl never could stand me.” 

“Couldn’t she? Why not? She never said so.” 

“ H’m,” said Ted Urquhart, and closed his lips as 
he paced along by the side of the other girl who had not 
been able to “ stand ” him, at least as a prospective 
husband. Then there fell upon him, suddenly, a great 
and aching need to talk about that first girl, to some 
one, any one. The little cousin at his side was not 
(now) unsympathetic. He turned to her and said, 
quickly, “ Besides ! Supposing that- had been true — 
what your friend Miss Pansy made up her mind about ! 
I should have had no chance to cut that other fellow 
out.” 

“What other fellow?” 

“ Man she — Miss Fayre — was engaged to.” 

Out of the dusk Eleanor’s voice sounded mildly 
surprised. 

“ I don’t think Rosamond — I’m sure she wasn’t en- 
gaged to be married.” 

“ Oh, I think she was,” said Ted Urquhart. 

And the dreariness of his tone struck through even 


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343 


the calm absorption of the girl who had just regained 
her freedom, and who said, quickly, “ Why are you so 
sure about Rosamond? ” 

Again he laughed that short and bitter laugh, 
pausing for a moment under the limes just at the spot 
where, weeks before in the dusk, he had caught that soft 
sound of a kiss that had been his torture ever since. 
But he only said briefly, “ Well, Eleanor, you saw them 
too. You saw the fellow when he came down to call 
on her.” 

“ Nobody came to call on Rosamond here, though,” 
objected Eleanor, “except that young Mr. Bray whom 
Father took such a fancy to.” 

“ Well, that’s what I meant.” 

“ Oh, but, Ted,” protested Eleanor, quite eagerly, 
“ I am sure Rosamond doesn’t want to marry him! ” 

“Are you?” said Urquhart. Hope, last of all feel- 
ing to die, seemed to stir for a second within him, as he 
added quickly, “ Is that just what you think ? Or have 
you any special reason for saying this? ” 

Eleanor, bright and matter-of-fact as if no crucial 
words were passing her lips, uttered the sentence that 
caused that stirring Hope to leap to life in her cousin’s 
heart. 

“Yes, I have a special reason, Ted.” 

What was this? 

“ What is it? ” he demanded brusquely. He took her 


344 


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by the arm. “ I say, Eleanor ! If there’s anything in 
this, for God’s sake tell me what you know ! ” 

“You do care, then? How frightfully queer men 
are ! I should never understand them. How is one 
to tell what they mean ? ” reflected Eleanor aloud. And 
she went on to say, “Well! Only a week or two ago I 
asked Rosamond if she would give me Mr. Cecil Bray’s 
address. You know he got on so well with Father about 
those genealogical charts and all that, I thought he’d 
cheer Father up, and that it would be nice to ask him 
down for the week-end, as he couldn’t stay last time. 
But Rosamond said — was that the dressing-gong? ” 

“ What,” demanded Urquhart, “ did she say? ” 

“ She said, ‘ Oh, do you mind not ashing him while 
I'm in the house ? ' " 

“ She said that? ” took up Ted Urquhart in an ex- 
pressionless voice. “ Perhaps it was because she didn’t 
want the affair given away.” 

“ No, it wasn’t,” insisted Eleanor, “ because I said, 
‘ But, Rosamond, don't you want him here with you? 
I thought he was such an old friend of yours? " And 
she s-s-s-” 

It seemed to Eleanor’s listener that he waited for an 
hour while Eleanor got the better of that little stutter 
of hers and went on. 

“ Rosamond said, 4 He is an old friend, hut he's always 
ashing to be something more. And I don't wish it' " 
“She said she 4 didn’t wish it?’ You’re certain of 


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345 


that, Eleanor?” her cousin said breathlessly. “What 
do you suppose she meant by it ? ” 

“ I thought she meant what she said, at the time. 
But really it’s so difficult to tell, it seems to me,” com- 
plained Miss Urquhart. “ First people say one thing 
— and then another. Like you, when you said ” 

“ I know,” interrupted the dazed Ted feverishly. 
“ That is, I don’t know what I said, or what I’m going 
to say. I only know I’ve got to say something, and 
as soon as I can manage it, to Her — — ” 

“ To Rosamond Fay re, d’you mean? ” took up Elea- 
nor; even Eleanor’s instinct could recognise and apply 
that capital H in the young man’s voice. 

“ Yes.” 

“ Very w-well ; then I’ll give you her address and you 
can motor yourself back to town this evening while I 
talk to Father,” planned his cousin swiftly. “ I broke 
off the engagement, you know. I have to explain 
that ” 

“ Will you also explain that I shall never come down 
to the Court again except as a guest — your guest? ” 
put in young Urquhart. “ I say, though — perhaps I’d 
better stay,” ruefully, “ and tell that to Uncle Henry 
myself ” 

“ You can tell him anything l-later. You’d better 
go now, m-my dear boy. I know you w-want to. And 
g-give my love to Rosamond,” she added quite diffi- 
dently. “ Ask her if she’ll come down. If not, I’ll 


346 


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come and see her. I — I — I You know, being en- 

gaged made me all so upset and cross” declared his 
cousin, 44 that I was rude to her, I’m afraid, before she 

w-went. I’ve been horrid ” 

44 Eleanor, you’ve been a little trump ! ” 

44 You’ve been so good to me, Ted,” declared his new 
ally affectionately. 

He took both her hands again as they reached the 
house. 

44 Eleanor,” he began again, unsteadily laughing a 
little, for his head was still in a whirl, 44 1 say, I haven’t 
been smoking. D’you think you could bring yourself 
to let me have a kiss, Dear? ” 

Apparently Eleanor could; quite promptly. 

But as her ex-fiance strode off towards the garage 
and she turned into the house, she thought to herself, 
44 Thank goodness he never said those sort of things to 
me while we were engaged ! It would have been nearly 
as bad as what Pansy said. Oh, I could never have 
stood it,” decided the girl who was destined to remain 
Miss Urquhart, and to be happy in her lot, 44 if there 
had been much more love-making like that 1 ” 


CHAPTER IX 


WAR-PAINT 

All the way up to town again Ted Urquhart drove 
along the Kentish roads like a madman, not caring if 
he were stopped, but knowing that this would be un- 
likely to occur. 

For in these days the police did not readily hold up 
a motor-car that was speeding along apparently upon 
urgent business, and driven by an officer wearing 
His Majesty’s uniform. And this — the one rather 
theatrical act of his life — Mr. Ted Urquhart had com- 
mitted. 

He had, after his interview with Eleanor, lingered at 
Urquhart’s Court not long enough to have anything to 
eat (“ dinner? Shan’t want it,” he’d smiled at the 
enquiring parlour-maid), but sparing himself just the 
time to get into the khaki and the accoutrements that 
had come home. 

This would save some explanation to Miss Fayre. 
She’d see that, whether at the eleventh hour or not, 
he’d volunteered. He needn’t tell her that. 

He debated what he would tell her ; how he’d begin ; 
picking and choosing and altering sentences as he 
whizzed along with stretches of road, gates, and hedges 
347 


348 


WAR-PAINT 


springing into the focus of his headlight for a flash, 
then dropping behind. That planning, too, he presently 
dropped behind him. 

He remembered how much of his time since he’d met 
that girl had been passed in just this profitless occupa- 
tion of making up his mind that he must say something 
to her. And then something else had invariably hap- 
pened to put a stopper on it. There should be no 
stopper to-night. . . . 

That day in France he’d had “ something to say ” 
to her — and she’d nipped it in the bud with the curtest 
little snub he’d ever received. 

That afternoon when he’d returned to the Court he’d 
had “ something ” to say. He’d arranged just what 
crows he had to pluck with that golden-haired minx — 
and then had come the staggering revelation that the 
girl with whom he’d fallen in love was not the girl he 
had to marry. 

That evening after the Hen-party he’d had “ some- 
thing to say,” something crucial — and it had been swept 
aside by another revelation, causing him to believe that 
she was engaged to another man. 

Even to-day on the Horse Guards Parade he had 
nearly said “ something ” else. It was only a Good- 
bye — but she’d turned her back on it ! 

And to think that She had never had an idea of all 
these planned “ somethings ” of Ted Urquhart ! So 
far as his courtship of Rosamond Fayre — for, looking 


WAR-PAINT 


349 


back on all the mistakes and tangles and misunder- 
standings, he could only admit that the impulse and 
mainspring of Courtship was there — So far the court- 
ship had gone on in the depths of his own heart only. 
It had all taken place, as Pansy would say, “ off ** 
. . . There should be a change to-night. . . . 

Then as he sat with his hands on the wheel, his im- 
patient eyes fixed ahead, a thought steadied and sobered 
him. There remained that unforgetable moment under 
the lime-trees, the hardest that Ted Urquhart had ever 
Kved through. There remained that sound of a kiss 
to another man. . . . 

The memory of it dashed all the mad rush of hopeful 
high spirits in which he’d whirled the car down the 
avenue and out on to the London Road. 

It was a very grave-faced young man in khaki, with 
a heart that seemed sinking into his brown boots and 
with the look in his eyes of a man who is staking his 
all upon a single throw, who pulled up at last in the 
little street off Ebury Street, who jumped out of the 
car and knocked at that green door with “ Madame 
Cora’s ” brass plate affixed. 

Madame Cora, startled, opened the door with a 
“ now-whatever’s-this ” look on her astute small 
face. 

“ Good-evening ! ” said the tall and khaki-clad 
apparition who stood on the whitened step blocking out 


350 


WAR-PAINT 


the view of the dimmed street-lamps. 44 Could you tell 
me if this is where Miss Fay re is staying? ” 

44 Ah! . . . Yes, it is,” said the landlady swiftly. 

In a flash she had arrived at one of those conclusions, 
which right or wrong, women preface with the phrase 
44 Something told me. . . 

44 If this young officer here isn’t what it’s all about 
that’s making Miss Fay re seem so quiet these days!” 
thought the landlady with conviction. 44 Moping up in 
her room this minute over the Ad-Verts in the Morning 
Post. This must be the meaning of it all, true as I 
stand here. Fancy.” 

44 Could I see her?” asked the tall visitor, moving so 
that the light of the hall gas fell upon the resolute and 
tanned face under the Service cap, upon the light, 
impatient eyes, upon the firm mouth with the small 
cropped moustache. 

44 Smart fellow, I call him; nice couple they’d look,” 
thought the little landlady even while she replied doubt- 
fully, 44 Well, I don’t know. I think Miss Fayre was 
dressing to go out to a party or something ” 

The visitor’s face became blankness incarnate at the 
news. 

44 Still, I’ll run up and see if she’ll speak to you a 
minute before she goes,” amended the landlady. 44 If 
you’ll go in there a minute I’ll just pop up.” 

The young man went into the room she indicated; 
a small parlour of which the whole of one side was 


WAR-PAINT 


351 


taken up by a long pier-glass. A round table occupied 
the centre of the room under the gasolier; it was piled 
high with Fashion-papers; “Modes Parisiennes,” 
“ Delineators,” “ Chics.” A chiffonier at the side held 
books of patterns (cloth, satin, Japanese silks) and a 
silver-topped biscuit-box. The mantelpiece and over- 
mantel were crowded with cheap china ; the pictures were 
an enlarged photograph of the late Mr. Core in Free- 
mason’s insignia, a coloured print of “ Carnation, Lily, 
Rose,” from the Tate Gallery, and another of a pic- 
ture called “ Reunion.” A couple of albums spread 
among the fashion-papers showed that Madame Cora 
had, some years ago, collected picture postcards. 
Also snapshots. ... $ 

All these, with other details, the visitor was to be 
allowed ample time to study while he waited, fuming, 
for the girl he had come to see. 

For Mrs. Core, “ popping ” upstairs to Miss Fayre’s 
room, thought to herself, “ I shan’t tell her who’s come 
to see her, no fear ! Flurrying and hurrying her ; and 
her in that old crepe blouse when I know for certain 
she’d want to look specially nice. She shall, too.” 

With a tap at the door the little woman slipped 
into the room where Rosamond Fay re sat on the edge 
of her narrow bed, studying her Morning Post listlessly 
enough. 

“ Not busy, are you? Wish you’d do something to 


352 WAR-PAINT 

please me,” said the landlady ingratiatingly. “ Will 
you, Miss Fayre? ” 

“What is it?” asked Rosamond, looking up with a 
rather subdued little smile. 

“Well, I’ve never had a sight of that pink lisse of 
yours, since I sent it home. . . . Wish you’d just slip 
it on now to let me have a look, could you? ... In 
this long drawer is it? . . . Ah! . . . It’ll go over 
your head. . . . Tuck this thing here down a bit more 
. . . That’s right. There . . . I’ll do you up.” 

And her clever, hard-worked fingers busied them- 
selves with the fastenings of that dress that Rosamond 
Fayre had only worn once — for five minutes. She’d 
tried it on just that one evening at The Court, and had 
nearly gone down to dinner in it. Then she’d taken it 
off again. . . . Three corolla’d, petal-flounced, rose- 
pink, it really was, as she’d thought, a flower turned 
into a frock. 

“ Looks beautiful on you, Miss Fayre, and no mis- 
take,” declared the little dressmaker decidedly, as she 
put her head on one side to contemplate that shining 
vision of gold and ivory and rose. “ Pity you can’t go 
about all day long in evening dress, with your shoulders 
and neck! Pity you aren’t just off to a dance now, 
eh? Got any sort of a wrap to wear with this? ” 

Rosamond murmured something about the black 
satin cape in the cupboard. She felt, however, that 
she would never be going off to a dance again as long 


WAR-PAINT 


353 


as she lived. Somehow she had a presentiment that 
nothing interesting could ever happen to her again; 
somehow this evening everything seemed over. . . . 
Over. . . . 

“ Throw that coat across your arm then, just to try 
the effect as if you were off out. Your hair’s all right 
as it is. Lovely. But slip on those little suede slippers 
o’ yours. You can’t really tell a dress with the wrong 
shoes,” decreed Madame Cora, for the moment all cos- 
tumier. “ Now look at yourself — Gracious ! Can’t see 
much of yourself in this rubbishy little shaving-mirror, 
can you? Remind me to put you another one in to- 
morrow. Better pop down now and take a look at your- 
self in the long glass in my fitting-room — dear.” 

Shrewd kindliness glinted in the eyes, out of which 
all illusions had been wiped, as the little woman-toiler 
hurried downstairs with the Beauty in the pink frock 
that had been the work of her hands. 

“ Give her every chance, at all events,” was the un- 
spoken thought of Mrs. Core. “ If that’s the One 
and Only she’ll be thankful for ever that she had on her 
pink when he came. Supposed to make no difference to 
the man what a girl’s got on ! It’s her the difference 
is made to. Shan’t forget my poor Harry cornin’ up 
to the scratch when I was all anyhow and my head tied 
up for the Spring-cleaning. Way men spoil things if 
they can ! . . . But whatever’s happened or going to 
happen about Miss Fayre and her young gentleman 


354 


WAR-PAINT 


that’s in this tearin’ hurry to see her she’ll be glad she 
was turned out daintily for the occasion. Him in uni- 
form and all.” 

Here the little woman opened the door of that small 
fitting-room. She gave one last touch, that was almost 
a gentle push, to the back of the pretty pink bodice. 

44 Some one that you know in there ! ” she announced. 
Then, standing outside herself, she closed the door, 
briskly and decisively, upon the entrance of Rosamond 
Fayre. 


CHAPTER X 


THE LAST LINE 

Rosamond, coming into the room, beheld first of all a 
stalwart and obstinate-looking back, clad in khaki. 

The owner of the back was sitting at the journal- 
littered table. His head was bent down over something 
that he seemed to have taken out of his tunic-pocket. 

A young man — in khaki? Ah, yes; Miss Fayre 
jumped at once to the idea of the only young man in 
that rig who was likely to be calling upon her. Why 
had he? What a pity! She’d hoped it was over, the 
good-bye to that young man. Still, she was bound to 
be “ nice ” to him — poor, poor fellow ! She came for- 
ward with a little rush as she cried, “ Why, I thought 
you were off , Cecil ? ” 

The young man stood up. At first she was only sur- 
prised at the height of him in that get-up. She hadn’t 
remembered that Cecil was so tall? 

He turned. 

“ Sorry,” he said. “ It isn’t Cecil.” 

And he looked straight into her eyes. 

She gave a breathless little gasp. 

“Oh! It’s — Why — Is it Mr. Urquhart?” 

“ Yes,” said Mr. Urquhart, gloomily. 

355 


356 


THE LAST LINE 


He felt that this was the worst start that could pos- 
sibly have been made. He didn’t know what to say next. 
All he could think of saying was, 44 It isn’t 4 Cecil.’ ” 

44 No. I see, now,” said the girl, wishing that she 
could speak without that silly, that idiotic flutter (of 
astonishment). 44 1 — I thought for a minute it was 
Mr. Bray, because he’s in the Territorials. I thought 
it must be. I didn’t expect to see you — in uniform.” 

44 Obviously not,” said he, grimly. 

She wished again that this surprise hadn’t taken her 
breath away and made her hand shake. She steadied it on 
the back of the chair, and stood facing him, all at sea. 

44 Is it really — Are you joining, too, then?” 

4<l Of course I’m joining,” he told her, resentfully. 
44 After being kept waiting since the day War was de- 
clared. That was when I wanted to join.” 

44 Oh, was it? ” said Rosamond Fayre. 

And that part of the surprise fell away from her. 

44 Of course” he was joining. How could she have 
ever thought that he'd thought of doing anything else? 
Wasn’t the instant impulse to strike for his country 
altogether characteristic of the man? Wasn’t he a 
soldier’s son and a born soldier himself? That uniform 
looked more natural to him than any clothes she’d seen 
him in, thought Rosamond confusedly. That jacket 
that looked as if it had been born on him and grown 
with him; that Sam Brown belt, the sword, those but- 
tons and badges, the turn-down collar about his strong 


THE LAST LINE 


357 


throat with the gold safety-pin beneath that knitted tie 
of khaki silk. That tie took Rosamond’s attention. It 
was one of those foolish little details that do catch a 
woman’s interest, so hard to fix on larger matters afoot. 
Rosamond found that tie delightful. She loved that tie 
. . . only the tie, of course. ... So this explained 
matters. Of course he’d been waiting to join (little fool 
that she’d been, to put him down as a shirker!) and 
of course this was why his wedding had been hurried 
on for to-morrow. 

It was a War-wedding, and Eleanor would be a War- 
bride ! 

Still flutteringly Rosamond suggested, “ Eleanor — I 
suppose it was Eleanor who sent you to me with — with 
some commission for me? ” 

“ No,” he said. 

He stared at her as he spoke; feasting at last the 
impatient eyes that he had schooled not to look on the 
rose-pink jewel in its ramshackle setting of a little 
gaslit-room. How perfect she was, how lovely ! It 
seemed to him at that moment that there was no war, 
no vaster issues, that all he prayed his gods for was 

“This girl to falter in his arms and tingle in his bloody 

Was she to be his? Was she? The fear that after 
all she might not listen, presently, parched his mouth 
and made him speak brusquely, almost gruffly. 


358 


THE LAST LINE 


“ I mean, Eleanor did send me ” 

“ You said just now she didn’t,” said Rosamond 
Fayre, looking at his Service-cap flung down on the 
table, and giving a little laugh, rather a forced little 
laugh. “Which do you mean, Mr. Urquhart? ” 

“ Both, in a way,” he answered, still looking hard at 
her. It was ghastly, this forcing of the lips to say 
certain words before the things with which his heart 
was crammed were allowed a hearing. He began to 
speak quickly, to gabble almost, in his hurry to get this 
part of it over and to come to what he really wanted 
to say. 

“ Eleanor did send me, but what I really came about 
was, what I had to settle up with you on my own 
account, Miss Fayre.” 

“Oh, yes?” she returned. 

That fluttering shyness left her ; thank goodness ! 
It left her sore, and angry, and proud; just as she 
would have wished to feel. She laid the black silk cape 
she had been carrying down on the table beside his 
cap. She drew herself up, this young and lovely Juno. 
On the defensive? Yes; it was — with rather a hard 
note in her pretty voice that she continued : “ So this 
is about — what ? ” 

“ You don’t know, perhaps ” 

He said it simply. But she chose to take it as 
irony. 

“ Yes. I suppose I do know. I suppose you want 


THE LAST LINE 


359 


to have it out with me,” she said a little defiantly, 
“ about the letters? The ones I wrote for Eleanor.” 

“ Well, I was going to speak about those, as a matter 
of fact,” he admitted, jockeying about for a fresh start. 
“ But you do take things for granted, don’t you? The 
wrong things into the bargain. You’ve done that all 
this time about me ! ” 

“ Which time ? ” demanded Rosamond Fayre. 

“All the time I’ve known you. From the beginning, 
when ” 

“ When you thought,” she took up quickly, “ that I 
was a girl you might get to know without letting her 
know who you were ! ” 

He, hotly, took her up here. “I never thought 
that ! ” 

“ But you did it.” 

“ But what I thought was — I thought” he began, 
and wound up bluntly, in confusion, “ I thought that 
you were somebody else. I imagined, like an ass, that 
you were Eleanor.” 

“ I— Eleanor? ” 

“ Well, I’d never seen her,” he began to explain. 
“ When I went over to France ” 

“ To spy,” said Rosamond angrily, “ on me — on her 
— on your fiancee ” 

“ Look here ! ‘ Spy 5 is a very ugly word, especially 

just now,” urged young Urquhart. “ Can’t you draw 
it a little more mildly than that? You never have given 


360 


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me any chance. I know it was a stupid thing to do. 
But I think I paid for it, don’t you? You saw to that.” 

44 I suppose you mean by writing that note to say that 
I knew who you were at the time,” said the girl. 

44 That — and other things,” said the man. 

44 Other things? ” 

44 Yes,” he said, flushing at the remembrance of her 
demure gibes, her glances, given or averted. 44 You 
know quite well you’ve never done anything but laugh 
at me — — ” 

44 One would think you were a German officer,” 
scoffed Rosamond Fayre, 44 to mind so much being 
laughed at for being found out in a trick ” 

This stung him. 44 I wasn’t the only person who was 
playing tricks.” 

44 You do mean those stupid letters, then? Very well,” 
said Rosamond, with a little shrug of the white shoulders 
framed in the pink frock. 44 1 can’t say more than that 
I’m sorry about them. I have made a clean breast of 
them ” 

44 Oh, have you ? If you’ll forgive me for contradict- 
ing you, I don’t think you’ve ever mentioned them,” said 
Ted Urquhart stiffly, 44 to me.” 

44 Well, Miss Urquhart did. She told me so. It was 
the same thing.” 

44 Not at all,” he objected. 44 It was something very 
different.” 

44 1 shouldn’t have thought so. Miss Urquhart seemed 


THE LAST LINE 


361 


to think that everything was in order about it, now. 
And I should have said,” fenced Rosamond, “ that she 
was the person to be considered.” 

“ Not me? 99 he said, challengingly. 

She would not look at him. 

She said, as if very tired of this discussion, “ Well ! 
If you feel you really must go on like this, and ask a 
lot of questions about them ! I don’t know why you 
think it’s necessary, and I don’t see why you couldn’t 
have done it while I was still at The Court,” Rosamond 
protested, standing very erect behind that chair ; “ but 
never mind. I’m here.” 

The man who loved her was only too conscious of 
that fact. Every fibre in him was thrilling to the sight 
and the sound of her, to the thought that he was free 
to tell her so, directly. . . . But she was fastening 
upon him larkspur-blue eyes full of what seemed un- 
deniable distaste. 

“ If you must cross-examine me about those idiotic 
letters, Mr. Urquhart,” said Miss Urquhart’s ex-secre- 
tary coldly, “ let us go on and get it over. I did write 
them ; five or six of them, I think it was. At all events 
I could tell you which were the ones I wrote, if you can 
produce them.” 

He produced the pocket-book over which his brown 
head had been bent when she came into the room. He 
took out a letter. He said, “ D’you mind looking at 
this one ? ” 


362 


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Rosamond took it, looked at it, and gave a sudden 
little gasp of horror. 

It was a letter — and not a letter. She realised that, 
here she was “ caught out ” in a mistake she thought 
she’d never made. It was the rough draft of that 
epistle of Eleanor’s to the young man in the South 
American Camp — and yet it had nothing to do with 
Eleanor. It was the letter that had the love-names 
in it, written on the margin and scrawled over again, yet 
not so that a man could not read them, if he tried. It 
was the work of an idle hand guided by a brain drowsy 
with day-dreams ! 

And this young soldier, who’d had neither lot nor 
part in that dream, stood, tall and implacably real, 
before Rosamond, and asked quietly, “ Did you write 
that? ” 

Scarlet to the hair, she flung back at him, “ I sup- 
pose you guessed that I did ? ” 

“ Not when I got it,” Urquhart said. “ Not at first. 
Eleanor told me that the letter with the rose-leaves in 
it was the first one you’d written. This is the one.” 

“ And you came — to show it to me — Oh! ” faltered 
Rosamond. 

Words failed her. She felt suddenly drooping; she 
moved quickly to Mrs. Core’s little horsehair sofa with 
its bright cushions of plush and crazy-work. She sat 
down, her hands clenched in her lap, her golden head 
bent to hide her hot and whelming blush from the pro- 


THE LAST LINE 


363 


fane eyes of this despicable and brutal young man. 
Here was the revenge that he was taking upon the girl 
who had dared ever to laugh at him. He’d come, the 
very night before his wedding and all, to display to 
her her own unbearable (because so silly) bit of self- 
revelation. 

44 Cad,” thought Rosamond fiercely. 44 One doesn’t 
expect to find any cads wearing khaki.” 

44 I came to ask you about it,” he said, standing above 
her so that her eyes were on a level with his sword-hilt. 
44 I’m off, early next week. I’m going to ask you before 
I go — and, to start with this letter — ” it rustled in his 
brown hand as he put the incredible question, 44 Why 
did you call me 4 Darling ’ ? ” 

44 I ? ” She raised her golden head abruptly. He had 
not understood, after all? “What can you mean? 
That letter,” she dropped her head again, 44 had nothing 
to do with you , Mr. Urquhart. I — I didn’t mean 
you ” 

44 This is what we’ve got to have out,” took up Ted 

Urquhart, with decision. 44 Now then ” 

At this moment the hall-door bell tinkled shrilly. 
There was a sound as of some one opening it, then 
talking ; Mrs. Core’s quick voice saying, 44 Dear me, 
you are late! I can’t have you in the fitting-room. 

Some one there. Come upstairs ” 

44 Oh, its a customer, and we — I am taking up the 
room,” said Rosamond, hastily rising, feeling she wel- 


364 < 


THE LAST LINE 


corned the chance of escape. “ Mr. Urquhart, if this 
was all you had to say to me ” 

“ It wasn’t. Far from it,” declared the young soldier 
grimly. “And I must speak to you. You can’t pack 
me off like this. Look here; I tell you I’m off next 
week. I may not see you again — ever. I may never 
come back.” 

“ Ah — don’t ! — it is so unfair ! ” cried Rosamond, 
suddenly wincing, “ to use that sort of argument ! ” 

“ All’s fair — sometimes,” said Ted Urquhart, looking 
at her. 

And in that moment both man and maid realised in 
some mysterious way that when they parted, it would 
not be as they had ever parted before. 

Rosamond could not have said how this could be, since 
he was to marry Eleanor to-morrow. Ted Urquhart 
still suspected a “ Cecil ” between them. Only, without 
knowing how they were to arrive at it, it was as if 
each of them had had a glimpse of some distant and 
shining goal. In that moment they saw it so clearly 
that they could even pretend not to see it. They could 
quarrel and fence, with that warm, unfounded hope at 
their hearts that peace — and that goal — would yet be 
reached. 

“ If I can’t stay and talk to you here, won’t you,” 
Ted Urquhart said, speaking more easily now, “ come 
out with me for half an hour? ” 


THE LAST LINE 


365 


“ But — ” she protested, with a glance about her. 

“ It’s quite warm outside. Have this on,” he urged 
gently, taking up from the table the soft satin cape, 
to put it about Rosamond’s shoulders. 

“ Please don’t — I don’t think I’m coming,” she said 
— and followed him. 

In the little hall they passed the customer, with Mrs. 
Core, who threw out a quick “ I shall be sitting up, don’t 
worry.” 

Rosamond preceded Urquhart through the front 
door, into the quiet street, 

“ I could drive you about,” suggested the young 
man with a nod towards his waiting car, “ if you 
liked? ” 

“ No, no. We’ll walk — but there’s nothing really to 
talk about,” declared Rosamond. “ Really there’s — — ” 

“The Park?” suggested Urquhart at a turning. 

“ Very well, for a minute. But ” 

In the warm autumn darkness they passed the big 
oblong mass of Buckingham Palace, unlighted now, save 
for a window here and there; they walked along the 
broad pavement, passing the sentries who stood to at- 
tention as this tall Engineer-officer went by with his 
lovely, fair-haired lady in the evening coat, that showed 
a flounce of rose-pink below, and a pair of little, patter- 
ing suede shoes. They walked past the fountain of the 
towering Memorial; past the lawns with the geranium 
beds, scarlet in sunlight, but now squares and borders 


366 


THE LAST LINE 


of a velvety and inky black. They turned aside to a 
walk shaded by trees on either side. In the grass 
further on, low-set lamps glared misleadingly. Above 
their heads in the deep sky, powdered with stars, a soft 
milky blotch appeared like a clouded moon. Another 
like patch of light appeared suddenly beside it; then, 
abruptly, both moons of white shifted and wheeled and 
became luminous shafts that chased each other across 
the heavens, eluding, pursuing, merging for a moment 
into one. 

“ Oh, look at those ” uttered Rosamond, sur- 

prised. “ Look ! ” 

The tall man moved his head impatiently above her. 

“ Never mind the searchlights for a minute. Listen 
to me, Miss Fayre. About that letter. About that 
‘ darling ’ you wrote — which wasn’t meant for me.” 

“You couldn’t have thought it was!” interposed 
Rosamond. 

“ I’d little cause to flatter myself, once I’d met the 
writer. I suppose you’ll say I might know who it was 
meant for,” Ted Urquhart hazarded, “ all things con- 
sidered.” 

“ Then you would know more than I did,” retorted 
Rosamond. 

“ What d’you mean, Miss Fayre ? D’you often 
write,” he suggested, “ without knowing who is to re- 
ceive the letter? ” 


THE LAST LINE 


367 


“ That’s meant to be horrid, but it’s really only 
rather silly,” said Rosamond loftily, as they retraced 
their steps. “ If you really want so much to know 
about that — that imbecile scribble of mine — it wasn’t 
‘to’ anybody. Except, perhaps, to some sort of a 
young man-in-the-air, don’t you know? ” 

“ Do you mean,” he said mystified, “ an airman? ” 
“ No ! I don’t know anybody in the Royal Flying 
Corps,” sighed Rosamond, a little mischievously ; “ I 
mean — oh, just a sort of person of one’s imagination. 
. . . You don’t understand. You wouldn’t.” 

“ Imagination ? ” he repeated, and shook his head. 
“ All this is getting a bit too intricate and subtle for 
me. We might go on like this for ever. There are 

lots of things — Well, cutting that out ” 

They had reached the end of that empty path. Rosa- 
mond made as if she would have walked back towards 
the great space before the Palace again, but he turned 
once more, and she walked beside him. Why not? Sud- 
denly he stopped and faced her. Her eyes, now grown 
accustomed to the darkness, seemed to trace some change 
in the resolute face under the peaked cap. Undeniably 
there was a change in his voice as he said, “ I don’t care 
who you’re engaged to. An engagement isn’t irrevo- 
cable. It’s not marriage, after all ” 

“Who I am engaged to?” repeated Rosamond, 
standing still, and entirely bewildered. “ I? ” 

“ Yes. I know you thought it wasn’t known.” 


368 


THE LAST LINE 


44 It — it isn’t,” returned Rosamond, beginning to 
wonder if this were just the very longest dream she had 
ever had? Whether another minute would not see it 
fade, that uncanny dark landscape of paths and bushes, 
that sultry gloom illuminated by the stars, the lurid, 
misleading lamps in the grass, the Titan beams of sub- 
dued light that swung and pursued each other across 
the skies? Whether she must not wake, to find herself 

in her little room in Ebury Street, alone 

And with that wonder came another, a paralysing 
sensation. 

Breathless, she felt herself pondering, as if over the 
falling petals of an imaginary flower, 44 He does, he does 

care for me. He doesn’t. He does. He can't ” 

Ted Urquhart’s voice above her said, 44 You see, I 
knew.” 

44 D’you mean you knew I was engaged? ” 

44 Yes,” he muttered, and again he was thinking 
gloomily that Eleanor must have been mistaken in what 
she’d said. Eleanor was so easily misled in what peo- 
ple 44 meant ” when they were in love. Again he was 
steeped in that wretched memory of another dark sultry 
evening under trees, when the sound so near him was 
not the mingled and subdued murmur of London’s 
traffic outside the Park, but the sound, punctuating 
the country silence, of that kiss. 

Rosamond asked breathlessly, simply, 44 But — who 
to?” 


THE LAST LINE 369 

She heard his short, savage laugh out of the soft 
gloom. 44 You needn’t ask.” 

“ Yes, I need. Please ! ” urged Rosamond. 44 Tell 
me. You must.” 

44 That young fellow,” he said sullenly, “ Bray.” 

“Cecil? Cecil?” 

44 Exactly,” said Ted Urquhart grimly. “ 4 Cecil.’ ” 

“ But I — but he, poor dear boy — ! What reason had 
you, Mr. Urquhart, for thinking so? ” 

44 Quite a good reason, I take it,” Urquhart said. 
44 1 heard — not my fault. I couldn’t help hearing ” 

44 Somebody told you I was going to marry Cecil 
Bray? ” cried the girl with an indignation that was as 
a sudden cordial to the sorely-tried heart of her listener, 
who took up — 

“No! Nobody said so. This was what happened. 
I was coming up the Avenue that evening after he’d 
had dinner at The Court, and I heard you — saying 
Good-bye to him. I heard ” 

44 Well, what? ” 

Ted Urquhart, feeling more than foolish, brought it 
out bluntly. 44 1 heard him kiss you.” 

44 What? ” cried Rosamond, unmistakably aghast. 

44 He didn’t kiss you? ” eagerly. 

44 You thought that? ” 

44 Upon my word I didn’t know what else to think,” 
said Urquhart, drawing a long breath. 44 As a matter 
of fact, I wondered ” 


370 


THE LAST LINE 


44 Perhaps you wondered,” put in Miss Fayre scath- 
ingly, 44 whether it was / who’d kissed him? ” 

44 Matter of fact, I did ! ” confessed Ted Urquhart 
out of the memory of tormented nights. 44 You see, it 
— I thought it was a kiss I heard, and, and ” 

Rosamond laughed furiously. 44 If you must know,” 
she said, with ice, 44 it was a kiss.” 

The ice entered Urquhart’s heart. Then again hope, 
the ineffable, revived. Could it have been just her hand 
that she’d permitted to that boy? 

44 He was going away. And I was frightfully sorry. 
For him, if you will have it. And he took up the hem 
of my black chiffon scarf that I’d got on; like this!” 
she lifted a corner of the cape she wore. 44 And he 
kissed that. I let him. It was all he could expect ” 

Not even her hand ! 

44 Some people expect very little. Curious thing, 
they usually get it,” remarked Urquhart in a strained 
voice. He cleared his throat, adding, 44 Are you really 
telling me that that youngster was nothing to you?” 

44 Couldn’t you have seen that for yourself? ” re- 
torted Rosamond impatiently. 44 Considering that I 
was so specially nice and kind and gentle to him, I 
should have thought it was obvious.” 

Ted Urquhart said with an agitated hopeful laugh, 
44 You have always been a perfect little Beast to me.” 

44 Oh, I haven't ” 

44 You have,” he insisted gladly. 44 Consistently. 


THE LAST LINE 371 

From the first. Might that mean — ? Mightn’t 

it?” 

Here Rosamond clenched the white ringless hands 
under her cape. She knew now the answer of the 
imaginary petals was “ It's true. He does love me! ” 
Steadying and hardening her voice she said, “ Mr. 

Urquhart, you haven’t the right to ” 

“ That night I hadn’t ; no. I should have freed my- 
self and taken my chance, though, if it hadn’t been for 
that — that dashed scarf-business. To-night,” his voice 
rang out clearly and joyously, “ I am free.” 

“ But to-morrow,” she gasped, “ you’re marrying 
Eleanor? ” 

“ Eleanor isn’t marrying me. When it came to the 
point she wasn’t having any. Sacked me,” he exulted 
boyishly, “ this afternoon ! ” 

“ She sacked you ? ” repeated Rosamond indignantly. 
A man less vain even than the man beside her might 
have caught the “ Oh-how-could-she ! ” of the girl’s 
tone. “ Why? ” 

“ She loathed the idea,” he explained rapidly, “ of 
me as a husband. But — look here, should you? . . . 
Should you? What do you think? ” 

Rosamond, with the goal shining and attained before 
her eyes, could only think, “ He loves me, and I must 
have known it all the time! ” 

For one more second the moss-grown shackle of 
Tradition held her; the Law that was instilled into the 


THE LAST LINE 


372 

“ well-brought-up ” maids of the Nineteenth Century. 
“ Thou shalt appear reluctant .” 

“ Mustn’t let him see I hoped so,” she told herself 
feverishly. “ Not, not at first — They're supposed not 
to think so much of you ” — and she turned away from 
the man beside her. 

She turned to gaze over the grass, speckled with those 
giant glowworms of the low-set lamps. She was glad 
they were far; that it was so dark along this deserted 
side-path, that there was nothing to betray that be- 
wildered rapture of her look. But even as she turned, 
she found herself suddenly girdled from behind by arms 
that seemed firm as a steel tyre about her. 

She had only to say quietly, “ Oh, please,” and she 
would be released. 

Or, less than that, she had only to let the lissom 
softness of her length turn to a rigid pillar in his arm. 

She did think of it. 

But the hold of a rusty fetter upon such as Rosa- 
mond Fayre is perhaps less strong than the hold of a 
tyre of steel. For in the same instant she thought 
rebelliously, “ It isn’t HIS sort of man who thinks 
less of a woman because she doesn’t haggle and pretend ! 
Must I? Need IP When I like him so much? ” 

Her lover spoke, unsteadily over her shoulder. 

“ Can’t you be a little sweet to me now? ” he muttered 
in her ear. “ I’ve had such a mauling ! ” 

“Oh; have you?” sighed Rosamond in pity and de- 


THE LAST LINE 


373 


light. He was ready, she knew, to face anything — yet 
here he was, at her mercy ! 

A 44 mauling? ” Poor boy ! 

He pleaded, 44 There’s so little time ! ” 

Quickly she twisted herself about in his hold. 

She faced him. Through the gloom she could guess 
the expression in his eyes ; blazing, adoringly-vindictive, 

and exacting. 44 Such a mauling ” Ah, she must 

make that up to him! 

To think that such a thing was her Duty ! 

Impulsively she put up her own arm from which the 
cape fell away. She took his neck into the soft curve 
of it. 

44 There,” she gave a little sigh. 

She felt as one who for long has battled against the 
tide, and who now swam buoyantly and easily, the tide 
having turned. 

44 There ! Is that better? ” 

44 My girl! . . . Mine!” he muttered. 44 No, don’t 
loose it again . . . ever ! ” 

He crushed her closer, shutting out for that moment 
of ecstasy all thought of the impending wrench — of the 
falling-in, the blare of the band, the crowded platform, 
the laughing, boyish faces clustered at every carriage- 
window, the warm handgrips of strangers, the gaiety 
above the pang, the shouted good-byes — 44 good luck to 
our Tommies ! ” — the cheers that rang to the echoing 
glass roof as the troop-train steamed out of the station, 


374 


THE LAST LINE 


taking the men to their battles abroad, leaving the 
women to theirs, at home. ... For that moment in the 
gloom of the Park below the searchlights that swept 
the guarded skies, an English soldier held his love as 
though he would not let her go. 

“But that’s not all?” he demanded hoarsely. 
“ Nell! ” 

She answered to that call as though she had always 
known his lover’s-name for her. As if the flood carried 
her, she set back her golden head. She shut her eyes ; 
yielding, yielding and presently returning kisses that 
left her his — for ever. 

“And now,” muttered her lover almost on her lips, 
“ now you can say ” 

“ Oh, Ted,” protested Rosamond Fayre, all trembling 
and alight, “ do I have to — oh, after all this — to say 
anything? ” 

“ Only what you wrote,” he insisted, “ on the side 
of that letter. I think I’d like to have it from your own 
mouth, thanks ” 

And he had that too ; whispered and warm, this time, 
and real. 

“My darling!” 


POSTSCRIPT 


WISH AND FULFILMENT 

“Why, you jumped at me, you know you did,” Captain 
Urquhart summed up a teasing discussion with his 
young wife. 

They were sitting at lazy ease in two deck-chairs set 
right up in the bows of his steam yacht as she sped 
along under tropic, star-strewn skies and over tropic 
seas, at night. 

They were on their second honeymoon now (the first 
having lasted two days only), and the silhouette of the 
couple showed black as ivory against the restless silver 
of the water. 

“ Naturally, I jumped at you,” took up Mrs. Ted 
Urquhart’s pretty mocking voice. “ There was I, a 
penniless pauper of a secretary-girl, and out of work 
at that, remember ! Suddenly confronted with the 
chance of being released for life from the fear of penury 
and the need to work — besides the chance of starring 
it as a hero’s wife. Of course she snapped at it ! And 
now you throw it in her face ” 

“Ah! Shamefully ill-used, isn’t she?” the young 
husband responded with an easy laugh. “ Always get- 
ting ragged about something now, if it’s only about the 
375 


376 


POSTSCRIPT 


phosphorescence looking so wonderful, like summer- 
lightning on the waves ” 

They laughed together as together they watched that 
iridescent toss to either hand through which their boat 
was cutting her way. 

For that which had been on the evening of their 
first meeting just a flicker of light on the French waves 
was steeping this velvet night in a steady wash of flame. 

“ I said then that this was how you ought to see it, 
Nell,” muttered Ted Urquhart softly. “ Remem- 
ber? ” 

And, since she would not answer, he leant suddenly 
forward and caught hold of her by a fold of the wrap 
that she wore over her dainty frock. 

“Don’t you hear that I’m speaking to you? The 
first time I set eyes on you, my lady, I gave you a 
good shaking,” he told her, “ I’m going to shake you 
again now, I think.” 

She submitted with the little laugh that was some- 
times, when her husband held her, not very far from 
a sob. 

For it was his left arm that he used. 

His right arm hung in a sling, like the arm of that 
eighteen-year-old officer-boy whom she had seen in 
Piccadilly. But with a difference. That other prom- 
ising young officer might return to the front after his 
wound was healed; but for Captain Urquhart there 
could be no return to Active Service, to the fight 


POSTSCRIPT 377 

for England, Home and Beauty — against Germany, 
44 Civilization and Culture.” 

His wounds had been two; a bullet in the leg ac- 
counted for one. But though it had restored him to 
her, his wife could not allow herself to think of the 
other. It had been dealt him even as he had lain help- 
less on the field ; and it had rendered useless the tendons 
of his right wrist. . . . 

Such had been, for Ted Urquhart, the Fortune of 
War. 

It was the Fortune of Love that he might draw his 
young wife to him at last, and might hide his bronzed 
face again in the warm white velvet of her throat. 

The ribbon that she sometimes wore, with the old 
paste ornament, was reposing at that moment in her 
husband’s jacket-pocket. And now he put another 
circlet of kisses about her neck ; added a clasp, a 
pendant. 

44 No, but, Ted ! — Listen, I wanted to ask you some- 
thing about that first evening ” 

44 M’m ? ” 

44 You know that new moon wish ” 

44 Oh, I believe there is some old superstition of that 
sort,” commented Captain Urquhart with mock dignity. 
44 Is there not ? ” 

44 Yes, but did you?” she insisted. 44 1 noticed 
you ” 


378 


POSTSCRIPT 


44 Sweet of you,” he acknowledged. 44 I thought you 
would never 4 notice ’ me, Nell. That was my trouble, 
just then.” 

44 Nonsense. You were quite conceited enough to 
see that I liked you from the very beginning — I don’t 
mean 4 see,’ I mean 4 imagine,’ ” Mrs. Urquhart cor- 
rected herself hastily. 44 Well, I noticed that you put 
your hand up to the safety-pin at your collar when 
you were speaking about the new moon. . . . Do tell 
me,” she broke off into a coaxing whisper as she nestled 
her head down again. 44 Were you touching gold for a 
wish ? ” 

44 As a matter of fact, I was,” admitted the young 
man. 44 1 was wishing that I might have gold to touch. 
And I’ve got it,” concluded Ted Urquhart happily, with 
his lips on Rosamond’s hair. 


THE END 




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